
Class v _1_ 
Book. ,Ws 
Copyright N°. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE 



AND 



DISEASE 



BY 



SAMUEL J. WILSON, M. D. 



The Knowledge of To-day 



CHICAGO: 

THE CUNIC PUBLISHING CO. 
1901 



*^6* 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 

TWO COPiES RECEIVED 

JUL 29 1901 

COPYWGHT ENTRY 

/«£.*.'«*' 

CLASS OL/XXc N«, 
COPY 8. 



Copyrig-hted By 

Samuel J. Wilson, M. D. 

1901 



INDEX. 

PAGE 

Preface 

5 

Christian Science 

9 

Disease 

65 

Alcohol 

107 

Tobacco 

159 

Quacks and Patent Medicines 

*. 170 

Pure Food Commissions 

180 

Do Germs Cause Disease ? 

\ . 202 



PREFACE. 



The purpose of writing this book is to present 
Christian Science in a rational light. 

To give the common-sense cause of disease. 

To explain fully the effects of alcohol and 
tobacco upon the human system. 

To give brief notice to quacks and patent 
medicines. 

And to examine some of the "inner workings" 
of that organization known as the Pure Food 
Commission. 

In the following pages no attempt has been 
made to "exploit fanciful theories, or to defend 
improbable hypotheses ;" no attempt to favor 
schools, creeds, or codes, but to state the facts 
in a plain and simple manner. 

Briefly mentioned the facts are these : 

First. There is nothing miraculous or super- 
natural about the cures performed by the Chris- 
tian Scientists. True, with some, "a touch, a 
blessing, and lo, disease vanishes into thin air, 
into the realms of immunity where sickness is 
unknown, and where suffering cannot enter." Yet 
this does not suggest a step upward into the 
higher regions of human understanding, and is 
fully explained in the following pages. 



6 PREFACE. 

Second. The man who can convince the world 
that health depends upon unchangeable laws, will 
do more to prevent disease than the art of medi- 
cine has ever done to relieve it. Yet the doctor 
who tells the plain, unvarnished truth will often 
lose his patient, because some people like to 
be humored in their ideas of sickness. 

Third. Alcohol and tobacco frequently pro- 
duce dyspepsia, and dyspepsia is the mother of 
disease, yet it is wonderful how some people try 
not only to destroy digestion, but the digestive 
organs. "We are told that however graciously 
the Good Being may deal with the hearts 01 
men, there is no evidence that He ever pardons 
the stomach and liver." 

Fourth. Any quack can dose a patient with 
pills and poor whisky, but it takes fresh air, 
exercise, and a good cook to build up a weakened 
body. Bread that is only half baked will never 
make a weak man strong. Bread may be the staff 
of life, but there is nothing said about dough. 

Fifth. The originators of the Pure Food Com- 
mission may have acted in good faith, yet the 
inspectors will never give us pure food, prevent 
sickness, or prolong human life. On the other 
hand, the absolute authority which the author 
understands is given the inspectors is demoraliz- 
ing to human nature. 

Knowledge is our only safeguard against error 
and fraud. "Knowledge teaches us that justice is 



PREFACE. 7 

the only amaranthine flower, and truth the only 
lasting virtue." 

While the author has endeavored to give a full 
and clear description of the various subjects men- 
tioned, he has also aimed to eliminate all super- 
fluous verbiage and present such subjects in the 
fewest words consistent with -a correct under- 
standing of each. This reduces the size of the 
book, and gives the greatest amount of knowl- 
edge with a minimum amount of reading. Medi- 
cal terms are omitted and each chapter is written 
in a plain conversational manner which can be 
readily understood by anyone. This will pre- 
vent confusion, and make the following pages 
more interesting. In a word, makes every page 
a lesson. 

There is also a chapter on "Do germs cause 
disease?" 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 



In her book Science and Health, the author 
understands Mrs. Mary Baker G.Eddy says there 
is no matter, evil, sin, disease or death. "Matter 
is mortal error and every (mortal) man a liar." 

Mrs. Eddy also says : "Sin and sickness are 
but the effects of error," (page 470; "man is not 
matter made up of brains, blood, bones and other 
material elements," (Page 474) "brains do not 
think and nerves do not feel ; there can be no 
pain or pleasure in matter." (Page 484.) 
"Nerves have no more sense apart from that 
which belief bestows upon them, than the fibers 
of a plant." 

The five senses are defined as mortal beliefs 
only, and on page 485 "Christian Science shows 
them to be false ; they are frauds, lies and cheats." 

.In her book, the Unity of God, Mrs. Eddy 
says : "God knows no such thing as sin." 

Regarding her belief Mrs. Eddy says : "This 
has not separated me from God, but has so bound 
me to Him as to enable me instantaneously to 
cure a cancer that had eaten its way to the jugu- 
lar vein, replace dislocated joints, and raise the 
dying to speedy health." 

On page 55 Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy 
says she has restored health in cases of both 



10 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

acute and chronic disease and in their severest 
forms. Secretions have been changed, the struc- 
ture has been renewed, shortened limbs have been 
elongated, 'cicatrized (deformed) joints have 
been made supple, carious or dead bones have 
been restored to healthy condition. What is called 
the lost substance of lung has been restored, and 
healthy organizations established. " And then 
Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy remembers the com- 
mandment "Do unto others," etc., and adds on 
page 400: "Until the advancing age admits the 
efficacy and supremacy of mind, it is better to 
leave the adjustment of broken bones and dislo- 
cations to the fingers of the surgeon." 

In speaking of Science and Health, page 79- 
189-29 1-2, Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy says: "In 
this volume of mine there are no contradictory 
statements, — at least none that are apparent to 
those who understand its propositions well 
enough to pass judgment on them." Again she 
says : "It is sometimes said that Christian Science 
teaches the nothingness of sin, sickness and 
death, and then teaches how this nothingness is 
to be saved and healed. The nothingness is plain, 
but it should be understood that error is nothing, 
and that its nothingness must be demonstrated 
in order to prove the somethingness — yea, the 
allness of truth." "This idea of human nothing- 
ness which Science inculcates enrages the carnal 
mind, and is the main cause of its antagonism." 

Again Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy describes 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 11 

the brain as "a mortal consolidation of material 
mentality and its suppositional activities/' 

Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy also says "Elec- 
tricity is but the least material mindlessness 
which forms no link between matter and mind 
and destroys itself." 

Question : "Who understands those proposi- 
tions well enough to pass judgment"? 

Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy says : "God is 
mind and God is all, hence all is mind." That 
settles it. 

In the denial of matter Mrs. Eddy places her- 
self and her followers in a very ridiculous light, 
and this claim is responsible for much of the 
prejudice existing against the Christian Scien- 
tists. According to this belief our five senses 
are five personal lies, ancl matter is a "mortal 
illusion. " This belief strikes out at once from 
the field of human learning every branch of phys- 
ical science. Natural philosophy goes out at the 
bottom. If "there is no matter," then, of course, 
all the properties of matter are insane illusions 
and idle fancy. Extension, weight, inertion, mo- 
bility, porosity, expansibility, tenacity, brittleness, 
and malleability, are but childish fancies and idle 
dreams. Attraction, repulsion, electricity, mag- 
netism, light, sound and heat, are but different 
forms of error. Our public schools- are gigantic 
swindles and lies, aiding in the propagation of 
these popular illusions. 

Chemistry also goes down with natural phil- 



12 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

osophy. All the boasted experiments of chemis- 
try are but forms of "mortal error" ; since, there 
being no matter, there can be no chemical prop- 
erties of that which does not exist. Geometry 
is a fraud, because there are no dimensions nor 
forms to that which is not. Geology is no longer 
entitled to the name of science . We vainly 
thought it revealed to us the story of the rocks, 
but it does not, since rock is but a name for hard- 
ened matter, which, according to Mrs. Eddy, has 
no existence save in human fancy. Astronomy, 
that splendid dream of the stars, is alas but a 
dream, an illusion of our senses. There is no 
matter, so those whirling worlds and sparkling 
orbs are but fancied fire-flies flitting across the 
human brain. 

Pardon us ! There is no brain, since brain is 
a form of matter. We should have said, flitting 
across the human fancy. 

Anatomy is no longer a science, since bones are 
formed of matter, and flesh and blood are chem- 
ical compounds. Now, since matter does not ex- 
ist, it is . but folly to cram the minds of youth 
with "mortal error" regarding arms, and bones, 
and muscles, and hair, and stomachs, and livers, 
and lungs. O'f course, there being no matter, 
there is no such thing as circulation of the blood, 
rupture of blood-vessels, fracture of bones, or 
dislocations. 

Hygiene is a humbug. Why should one bur- 
den himself with rules of diet, with exercise, or 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 13 

cleanliness, when all these things are but "the 
belief of error/' Why scrub and bathe and house- 
clean, when dirt does not exist? Human thought, 
like Noah's dove, flits hopelessly over the bosom 
of infinite space, yet finds no resting place. 

According to Mrs. Eddy, all judiciary pro- 
ceedings against criminals are the most absurd 
nonsense ; what folly to proceed to punish a man 
for theft when theft is a thing impossible, since 
there is nothing to steal. All that we think we see 
and covet, are but the images of our deluded 
fancy, for, "there is no matter/' How silly to 
try to punish a man for murder, since according 
to Mrs. Eddy, "there is no death." Therefore, 
there was no murder. 

A certain Christian Science doctress once stood 
over the earthly remains of her departed hus- 
band—or rather "the departed fancy of her im- 
mortal mind" — and solemnly and peacefully de- 
clared, "There is no death" ; yet she bought an 
imaginary coffin in which to place in imaginary 
earth the imaginary body of her imaginary hus- 
band, thence she went to the imaginary marble 
dealer and further invested an imaginary amount 
in an imaginary monument to place over the 
imaginary grave of the imaginary object of her 
imaginary hopes and. fears. 

Such teaching from Mrs. Eddy makes the 
Christian Scientists appear very ridiculous. Ac- 
cording to her teaching, the Christian Scientists 
go about curing disease when there is no disease, 



14 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

saving people's lives when there is no death, re- 
lieving pain when there is no pain, curing cancer 
when there is no cancer, for cancer would neces- 
sitate matter, and matter is but "mortal error," 
so says Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy. 

No doubt many of these so-called healers be- 
lieve that, supported by the full possession of 
Mrs. Mary Baker G. Eddy's book, they can ac- 
tually cure typhoid fever, small-pox, consump- 
tion, abscess o»f the liver, cause broken bones to 
unite, reduce dislocations, prevent accidents, stop 
bullets, ward off imaginary disease and death, 
"cleanse the lepers, cause the dead to rise up, the 
deaf to hear, the lame to walk, the blind to see.." 
With these people an epidemic would be a 
camp-meeting revel, or a carnival of faith-curing 
glory, in which they could display the wonderful 
healing powers of their Divine gift. A touch, a 
blessing, and lo ! disease vanishes into thin air, 
into the realms of immunity, where sickness is 
unknown, and where suffering cannot enter. Can- 
cer and consumption do not exist, because there 
is no disease, curable or incurable, no contagion, 
infection, or heredity. The healer would pray 
in the midst of an alarming hemorrhage, blood- 
poisoning or convulsions, with the same assur- 
ance that the professional juggler boils eggs in a 
new silk hat borrowed from one of the audience, 
and which he promises to return unsoiled, or with 
the same assurance that he exhibits the vanish- 
ing lady to a surprised assembly. Fractured 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 15 

skulls, neuralgia of the heart, or asphyxia, are 
only fictions of an unbelieving imagination. 

The healer would invade the domain of surgery 
and undertake the care of the broken leg, or a 
wound of the abdominal cavity, praying the sev- 
eral fragments into apposition, or the several tis- 
sues into continuity. 

Ridiculous as all this is, there is but one rem- 
edy — Education. The law does not affect these 
people, does not reach them. Lawyers of greater 
or less distinction can always be found to es- 
pouse the cause of the healer in the toils and 
cunningly distort the facts to prove that these 
people do not practise medicine because they 
give no drugs. Grand jurors, too, may arise in 
their places pending the consideration of a pro- 
posed indictment, and tell of the wonderful cures 
that have been performed within their own 
knowledge, by the prisoner. 

Perhaps some of these healers, these latter-day 
prophets, are self-deluded and sincere, but the 
sole element with the Christian Scientists, who 
act by faith and depend upon mental states for 
the results, is one and the same thing — sugges- 
tion. 

The well-known writer, Mark Twain, gives us 
the following as his experience with Christian 
Scientists, and their treatment. He was on his 
way from Vienna, from the appetite-cure in the 
mountains. He says he fell over a cliff in the 
twilight and broke some arms, and legs, and one 



16 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

thing and another, and by some good luck was 
found by some peasants, who carried him to the 
nearest habitation. In a village not far away 
were a horse-doctor and a Christian Science lady 
from Boston. The latter was sent for, and she 
sent word back that there wasn't any hurry, and 
she would be over the next day. In the meantime 
she would give absent treatment. 

Morning came at last; so did the lady from 
Boston, and after a somewhat extended conver- 
sation I discovered she was under the inspiration 
of the third degree, therefore, there could be no 
profit in continuing this part of the subject. I 
shifted to other ground and inquired further 
concerning the discovery of the science. Much 
of that part of the following imaginary conver- 
sation carried on by the "Lady from Boston/' is 
found in Mrs. Eddy's "Key to the Scriptures." 

Did the discovery come suddenly, like Klon- 
dyke, or after long study and calculation like 
America? "The comparisons are not respectful 
since they refer to trivialities, but let it pass. ] 
will answer in the discoverer Mrs. Eddy's own 
words : "God had been graciously fitting me dur- 
ing many years, for the reception of a final rev- 
elation of the absolute principle of absolute sci- 
entific mind-healing.' " 

"Many years. How many?" 

"Eighteen centuries." 

"It is amazing." 

"You may well say it, sir, yet it is but the truth. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 17 

This American lady, our reverend and sacred 
Founder, is distinctly referred to and her coming 
prophesied, in the twelfth chapter of the Apoca- 
lypse ; she could not have been more plainly indi- 
cated by St. John without actually mentioning 
her name." 

"How strange, how wonderful !" 

"I will quote her own words, from her key to 
the Scriptures : 'The twelfth chapter of the Apoc- 
alypse has a special suggestiveness in connection 
with this nineteenth century. 'There — do you 
note that? Think — note it well." 

"But what does it mean?" 

"Listen and you will know, I quote her in- 
spired word again : Tn the opening of the sixth 
seal, typical of the six thousand years since 
Adam, there is one distinctive feature, which has 
special reference to the present age. 

'Thus: Revelation 12-1 : And there appeared 
a great wonder in Heaven — a woman clothed 
with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and 
upon her head a crown of twelve stars/ 

"That is our Head, our Chief, our Discoverer 
of Christian Science — nothing can be plainer, 
nothing surer — and note this : 

"Revelation 12-6: And the woman fled into 
the wilderness, where she had a place prepared 
by God. 

'That is Boston." 

"I recognize it, madam. These are sublime 
things, and impressive ; I never understood these 



18 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

passages before; please go on with the — with 
the proofs." 

"Very well. Listen: 

'And I saw another mighty Angel come down 
from Heaven, clothed with a cloud; and a rain- 
bow was upon his head, and his face was as it 
were a sun, and his feet as pillars of fire. And 
he had in his hand a little book.' 

"A little book, a little book — could words be 
modester ? Yet how stupendous its importance ! 
Do you know what that book was ?" 

"Was it—" 

"I hold it in my hand, — Christian Science." 

"Hear our Founder's eloquent words : 'Then 
will a voice from heaven cry, go and take the lit- 
tle book ; take it and eat it up, and it shall make 
thy stomach bitter; but it shall be in thy mouth 
sweet as honey.' 

"Mortal, obey the Heavenly Evangel. Take up 
Divine Science. Read it from beginning to end. 
Study it. Ponder it. It will be indeed sweet 
at its first taste, when it heals you; but murmur 
not over Truth, if you find its digestion bitter. 
You now know the history of our dear and holy 
science, sir, and that its origin is not of this earth, 
but only its discovery. I will leave the book with 
you and go now ; but give yourself no uneasiness 
— I will give you absent treatment from now un- 
til I eo to bed." 

Under the powerful influence of the near treat- 
ment and the absent treatment together, my bones 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 19 

were gradually retreating inward and disappear- 
ing from view, and gradually my body was made 
to accommodate the process of restoration. Every 
minute or two I heard a dull click inside and 
knew that the two ends of a fracture had been 
successfully joined. This muffled clicking con- 
tinued for some three hours and then stopped — 
the connections had all been made. All except 
dislocations, there were seven of these; hips, 
shoulders, knees, neck, etc., so that was soon 
over ; one after another they slipped into their 
sockets with a sound like pulling a distant cork, 
and I jumped up as good as new, as to frame- 
work, and sent for the horse-doctor. 

I was obliged to do this because I had a cold 
in the head and a stomach-ache, and was not will- 
ing to trust these things any longer in the hands 
of one whom I did not know and who had not 
given these troubles a shade of relief ; indeed they 
were getting worse. 

The horse-doctor came, a pleasant man full of 
hope and professional interest in the case. In 
the matter of smell he was quite odoriferous, and - 
on that account I tried to arrange with him for 
absent treatment. He examined my teeth and 
said my age and general condition were favor- 
able to energetic measures, therefore he would 
give me something to turn the stomach-ache into 
the bots, and the cold in the head into blind- 
staggers, then he would be on his own beat, and 
would know what to do. He made up a bucket of 



20 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

bran mash, and instructed me to take a dipperful 
every two hours, alternated with another prepa- 
ration containing turpentine and axle-grease. He 
stated that my ailments would disappear in twen- 
ty-four hours, and so interested me in other ways 
as to make me forget they were on the premises. 
I took up the Christian Scientist's book and 
read half of it, then took a dipperful of bran 
mash, and read the other half. The resulting ex- 
perience was full of interest and adventure. All 
through the grumblings and grindings and quak- 
ings and effervescings accompanying the evolu- 
tion of the ache into botts, and the cold into 
blind staggers, I could note the generous strug- 
gle for mastery going on between the bran mash, 
the other medicine and the literature, and often 
I could tell which was ahead, and could easily 
distinguish the literature from the others, when 
the others were separate, though not when they 
were mixed, for when a bran mash and an eclec- 
tic drench are mixed together they look just like 
the apodictical principle, out on a lark, and no 
one can tell it from that. The finish was reached 
at last, the evolutions were complete and a fine 
success, but I think that these results could have 
been obtained with fewer materials. I believe 
the mash was necessary to the conversion of the 
stomach-ache into botts, but I think one could 
develop the blind-staggers out of the literature it- 
self, also that blind-staggers produced in this 
way would be of a better quality and more lasting 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 21 

than any produced by the artificial process of a 
horse-doctor. 

For of all strange, and frantic, and incompre- 
hensible, and uninterpre table books, which the 
imagination of man has created, surely this one 
is the prize sample. It is written with a limitless 
confidence and complacency, and with a dash and 
stir, and earnestness, which often compel the ef- 
fects of eloquence, even when the words do not 
seem to have any traceable meaning. There are 
plenty of people who imagine they understand 
the book. I know this for I have talked with 
them, but in all cases they were people who pre- 
tended to 'believe that there was no such thing 
as pain, sickness, and death, and no realities in 
the world, nothing actually existed but mind. To 
me this seems to modify the value of their testi- 
mony. When these people talk about Christian 
Science they do as did the lady who doctored 
me, they do not use their own language, but the 
book's; they pour out the book's showy incoher- 
ence, and leave you to find out later that they 
were not originating but merely quoting. They 
seem to know the volume by heart, and to revere 
it as they would a Bible. Plainly the book was 
written under the mental dislocations of the 
Third Degree, and I feel sure that none but the 
membership of that Degree can discover mean- 
ings in it. When you read it you seem to be lis- 
tening to a lively and aggressive and oracular 
speech delivered in an unknown tongue, a speech 



22 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

whose spirit you get but not the particulars ; or, 
to change the figure, you seem to be listening 
to a vigorous instrument which is making a noise 
which it thinks is a tune, but which to persons 
not members of the band is only the martial toot- 
ing of a trombone, and merely stirs the soul 
through the noise but does not convey a mean- 
ing. 

The book's serenities of self-satisfaction do al- 
most smack of a heavenly origin — more especial- 
ly as they have no blood kin on the earth. It is 
more than human to be so placidly certain of 
things, and so finely superior, and so airily con- 
tent with one's performance. Without ever pre- 
senting anything which may rightly be called by 
the strong name of Evidence, and sometimes 
without even mentioning a reason for a deduc- 
tion at all, it thunders out the startling words : "I 
have proved" so and so. It takes the Pope and 
all the great guns of his church in battery assem- 
bled, to authoritatively settle and establish the 
meaning of a single and sole unclarified passage 
of Scripture, and this at vast cost of time, study 
and reflection; but the author of this work is 
superior to all that. She finds the whole book 
in an unclarified condition, and at small expense 
of time and no expense of mental effort she clar- 
ifies it from lid to lid, reorganizes and improves 
the meanings, then authoritatively settles and es- 
tablishes them with formulas which you cannot 
tell from "Let there be light !" and "Here you 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 32 

have it !" It is the first time since the dawn-days 
of Creation that a voice has gone crashing 
through space with such placid and complacent 
confidence and command." 

Then follows the question of authorship of 
Mrs. Eddy's book, in which it is claimed that 
Mrs. Eddy did not write the book which she is 
credited with writing. 

Under division five Mark Twain gives us some 
true history regarding faith-cures : No one 
doubts — certainly not I — that the mind exercises 
a powerful influence over the body. From the 
beginning of time, the sorcerer, the interpreter 
of dreams, the fortune-teller, the charlatan, the 
quack, the wild medicine man, the educated phy- 
sician, the mesmerist and the hypnotist, have 
made use of the client's imagination to help them 
in their work. They have all recognized the 
potency and availability of that force. Physicians 
cure many patients with a bread pill ; they know 
that when the disease is only a fancy, the pa- 
tient's confidence in the doctor will make the 
bread pill effective. 

JFaitih in the doctor! Perhaps that is the en- 
tire thing. It seems to look like it. In old times 
the king cured the king's evil (once popularly 
applied to scrofula) as it was thought it could be 
cured by a touch of the royal hand. He frequent- 
ly made extraordinary cures. Could his footman 
have done it ? No, not in his own clothes. Dis- 



U CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

guised as the king, could he have done it? I 
think we may not doubt it. 

I think we may feel sure that it was not the 
king's touch that made the cure in any instance, 
but the patient's faith in the efficacy of a king's 
touch. Genuine and remarkable cures have been 
achieved through contact with the relics of a 
saint. Is it not likely that any other bones would 
have done as well if the substitution had been 
concealed from the patient? 

When I was a boy, a farmer's wife who lived 
five miles from our village had great fame as 
a faith-doctor — that was what she called her- 
self. Sufferers came to her from all around ; and 
she laid her hand upon them and said : "Have 
faith. It is all that is necessary," arid they went 
away well of their ailments. She was not a 
religious woman and pretended to no concealed 
occult powers. She said that the patient's faith 
in her did the work. Several times I saw her 
make imediate cures of severe tooth-ache. My 
mother was the patient. 

In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great 
trade in this sort of industry and has both high 
and low for patients. He gets into prison every 
now and then for practising without a diploma, 
but his business is as brisk as ever when he gets 
out, for his work is unquestionably successful 
and keeps his reputation high. 

In Bavaria there is a man who performed so 
many great cures that he had to retire from his 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 25 

profession of stage-carpentering, in order to meet 
the demand of his constantly increasing body of 
customers. He goes on from year to year do- 
ing his miracles ; and has become very rich. He 
pretends to no religious helps, no supernatural 
aids, but thinks there is something in his make- 
up which inspires the confidence of his -patients, 
and that it is this confidence which does the work 
and not some mysterious power issuing from 
himself. 

Within the last quarter of a century in Amer- 
ica, several sects of curers have appeared under 
various names, and have done notable things in 
the way of healing ailments without the use of 
medicines. There are the Mind-Cure, the Faith - 
Cure, the Prayer-Cure, the Mental-Science Cure ; 
and apparently they all do their miracles with 
the same old powerful instrument — the patient's 
imagination. Differing names, but no difference 
in the process. But they do not give that instru- 
ment the credit ; each sect claims that its way 
differs from the ways of others. 

They achieve some cures, there is no question 
about it ; and the Faith-Cure and the Prayer- 
Cure probably do no harm when they do no 
good, since they do not forbid the patient to help 
out the cure with medicines if he wants to, but 
the others bar medicine and claim ability to cure 
every conceivable human ailment through the 
application of their mental forces alone. They 
claim ability to cure malignant cancer and other 



26 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

affections which have never been cured in the 
history of the race. There would seem to be an 
element of danger here. It has the look of claim- 
ing too much. Public confidence would probably 
be increased if less were claimed. It might be 
shown that all the "mind-sects," except Chris- 
tian Science, have lucid intervals, in which they 
betray some diffidence, and iii effect confess that 
they are not the equal of the Deity; but if the 
Christian Scientist even stops with being merely 
the equal of the Deity, it is not clearly provable 
by his Christian-Science-amended Bible. In the 
usual Bible the Deity recognizes pain, disease 
and death as facts, but the Christian Scientist 
knows better, and is not diffident about saying so. 
The Christian Scientist was not able to cure 
my stomach-ache and my cold, but the horse- 
doctor did it. This convinces me that Christian 
Scientists claim too much. In my opinion it 
ought to let diseases alone and confine itself to 
surgery. There it would have everything its own 
way. The horse-doctor charged me thirty-three 
kreutzers, and I paid him ; in fact, I doubled it 
and gave him a shilling. Mrs. Fuller brought in 
an itemized bill for a crate of broken bones, 
mended in two hundred and thirty-four places, 
one dollar per fracture. "Nothing exists but 
mind." "Nothing," she answered, "All else is 
substanceless, all else is imaginary." I gave her 
an imaginary check, and now she is suing me for 
substantial dollars. It looks inconsistent." 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE, 27 

The experience of Mark Twain may or may 
not have suggested the following, yet the thought 
expressed seems to correspond so well with the 
experience of this popular writer, that it is given 
here. 
"Give me something to ease me ; don't sit there 

and stare ! 
Bring a mule in to kick me; put a knife to my 

throat. 
Get a battering ram or an old billy-goat, 
And batter my brains out; get a threshing ma- 

* chine 
And thresh this thing out of my liver and spleen. 
Do any old thing in the world and be quick. 
Get up and do something; I tell you I'm sick!" 
Then she opened her eyes and half-pouting lips 
And smiled like the sun coming out of eclipse. 
And she murmured and twittered in sweet win- 
ning ways, 
Pinning roses of rhetoric onto each phrase, 
'Till, at last, quite confounded, I lay back and 

had 
A horrid suspicion — The woman was mad ! 
For she rolled on in speech like the waves of the 

sea, 
And hurled the whole body of doctrine at me, 
Andx wound up by saying "There's nothing but 

tho't, 
When you think you are sick, it is proof you are 

not. ' 
A little reflection will make it all plain ; 



28 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

That no man or woman can ever have pain ; 
It's a myth and delusion, a trick of your tho't, 
When you think you have pain, it is proof you 

have not. 
It is only depravity thwarting the truth, 
Planting tares in the garden and highway of 

youth. 
Coming back to first principles, now don't you 

see, 
There is nothing but tho't ? And that tho't makes 

us free. 
As free as the light, which is only a tho't, 
For light is so gross that you know it is not. 
The Immanent soul takes cognition, you see, 
And the Eminent goes,, and those two tho'ts 

agree. 
So the reason is plain, and, it needs but a word 
To sho\Y that your notion of pain is absurd. 
To prove it, I'll hold you in tho't for a spell, 
And your notion will vanish, and all will be well." 
When she rose, she looked round and said "Hold 

to that tho't, 
When you think you are sick, it is proof you are 

not." 
Reattired, she stood for a moment or two, 
Looking off into space — then without more ado 
Shook her feathers and walked to the half-open 

door. 
And paused on the threshold to tell me once 

more : 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 29 

"You think you are sick, but you see you are not. 
Just keep that in mind and just hold to the tho't." 
Her steps died away and I heard them no more, 
But the bar-tender came and looked in at the 

door, « 

And bowing profoundly he said with a wink, — 
"When I has the colic, I takes a big drink. 
A big horn of brandy, or a hot whisky-stew, 
Is about the right thing, I'm thinking, for you." 
He brought me a pitcher of hot, steaming stuff, 
And said there was more, if that wasn't enough. 
And I filled myself up on the hell-broth he 

brought, 
And have always rejoiced at the miracle wrought. 
Next day I received from the doctor a note, 
With a bill for ten dollars ; and sat dow r n and 

wrote : 
"Tit for tat is a maxim as old as the sphinx ; 
I am quite well to-day, but I paid for the drinks. 
Yet still I am mindful of all that you said 
As you talked me to death on a pain-torturer 1 

bed. 
And what you there told me, of course, must be 

true, 
So I hand your philosophy all back to you; 
If I was not sick, there was nothing to cure, 
And that being so — then the fact is dead sure 
Your bill is a humbug ; there is nothing but tho't. 
When you think you want money, it's proof you 

do not." 
The following quotations are from "Christian 



30 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

Science," by William A. Purrington, lecturer In 
the University and Bellevue Hospital Medical 
College, one of the authors of "A System of 
Legal Medicine," etc., etc. The quotations are 
brief, therefore do not do justice to Mr. Purring- 
ton's book. 

"Beyond doubt there are very honest, intelli- 
gent, cultivated persons who believe in the ef- 
ficacy of Christian Science and faith cure. Among 
some twenty cases of deaths under such treat- 
ment, including cases of contagious diseases, the 
writer has noticed the names of such persons. It 
is equally true that some 'intelligent persons' find 
no 'fad' too extraordinary for adoption. The 
writer knew of a shrewd and cultivated woman 
who consulted in Sing Sing prison as to invest- 
ments in stocks an 'astrologer' convicted not 
only of illegal medical practice, but of abhorrent 
crime. It is said that where Voudooism prevails, 
cultivated persons consult its priestesses, after 
the fashion of Nicodemus. And when St. John 
Long, prince of quacks, was convicted of man- 
slaughter, among the twenty-nine patients who 
testified to the excellence of his treatment were 
divers 'ladies of quality' headed by the 
Marchioness of Ormond, than whom, save roy- 
alty, only a duchess could be better able to form 
a sound opinion in such case. 

"What is Christian Science? The answer may, 
best and most fairly, be given by quoting the very 
words of the remarkable lady, Mrs. Eddy, who, in 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 31 

1886, made the somewhat belated discovery of 
this branch of healing. This is the more im- 
portant because many who, without having read 
the text-book, fancy they know, in a general way, 
what it teaches, would be surprised, on looking 
into the volume, at the vagueness of expression, 
hopeless confusion of thought, vain boasting, com_ 
placent assertion of impossible occurrences, viru- 
lent denunciation of all other systems, and sys- 
tematic, commonplace advertising that every- 
where appear. The publications to be quoted 
from are 'Science and Health, with Key to the 
Scriptures' and 'Miscellaneous Writings, 1883- 
1896/ The former, being the text-book wherein 
the new discovery is expounded, is read at the 
church service of the Scientist alternately with 
the Bible, and, if its author is to be credited, the 
mere reading of it, understandingly, has cured 
and will cure the most malignant diseases, even 
cancer, and indeed is the chief factor in all treat- 
ment. 

"At the threshold of this magnum opus, we are 
told : 'The time for thinkers has come.' Hither- 
to, the world has got along in a thoughtless fash- 
ion ; but at last the thinkers are upon us — not 
only those who think they think, but real thinkers ; 
and it behooves us to heed their thought. 

"The most that can be made of her theory is that 
disease does not exist save as a false belief to be 
treated with argument; and the positive treat- 
ment of it is as follows : First of all, buy Mrs. 



32 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

Eddy's books and have the patient do so. This 
will increase the circulation — of the book, if not 
of the patient. Next, deny that there is any dis- 
ease, and make the patient agree with you. Re- 
member that all is mind and there is no matter. 
You are only seeing or feeling a belief, whether 
it be cancer, deformity, consumption, or fracture 
that you deal with. Having thus established that 
the disease does not exist, you next proceed to 
meet the incipient stage of disease with such pow- 
erful eloquence as a Congressman would employ 
to defeat an inhuman law ! No disease can stand 
that. Still more oddly, you are not to call this 
disease, whose existence you. deny, by name, but 
mentally, lest if the patient hearing its name, his 
mortal mind will hold on to the disease ; for, ap- 
parently, the mortal mind, which itself has no ex- 
istence, although impressed by absent treatment 
and the reading of Mrs. Eddy's book, cannot let 
go any disease whose name is spoken out loud. 
But if you only address the disease mentally and 
speak the truth to it, 'tumors, ulcers, tubercles, 
inflammation, pains and deformed backs * * * all 
dream shadows, dark images of mortal thought, 
will flee before the light/ To the practical mind 
it would seem that the 'healer' would need some 
medical knowledge to make his differential diag- 
nosis of 'ulcers' and 'tumors/ and to distin- 
guish between abscess, aneurism, and other ab- 
normal conditions. And if disease does not ex- 
ist, and has no intelligence to move or change 



CHRISTIANZSCIENCE. 33 

itself, it does seem a bad waste of time to have 
any discussion at all with it. 

"Who and what is Mrs. Mary Moss Baker 
Glover Patterson Eddy, who in 1866, threw light 
upon the gospels for lack of which saints, sages 
and poets, stumbling in darkness through the 
ages, have failed to apprehend the Saviour's 
teachings. 

"An apostle worthy of the name should have a 
somewhat extraordinary childhood, and Mrs. 
Eddy writes : 

" 'For some twelve months, w r hen I was about 
eight years old, I repeatedly heard a voice calling 
me distinctly by name three times in an ascending 
scale/ 

■ 'When the call came again I answered in 
the words of Samuel, but never again to material 
senses was that mysterious call audibly repeated. 

■' 'My father was taught that my brain was too 
large for my body, and so kept me much out of 
school, but I gained book learning with far less 
labor than is usually requisite. After my dis- 
covery of Christian Science, most of the knozvl- 
edge I had gleaned from school books vanished 
like a dream. 

■ 'The Scripture gave no direct interpretation 
of the scientific basis for demonstrating the spir- 
itual Principle of healing, until our Heavenly 
Father saw fit, through the 'Key to the Scrip- 
tures/ in 'Science and Health/ to unlock this 
mystery of godliness/ 



34 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

"Regarding her Metaphysical College, Mrs. 
Alary Baker G. Eddy says : 'When God impelled 
me to set a price on my instruction in Christian 
Science Mind-healing, I could think of no finan- 
cial equivalent for an impartation of a knowledge 
of that divine power which heals; but I was led 
to name three hundred dollars as the price for 
each pupil in one course of lessons at my col- 
lege — a startling sum for tuition lasting barely 
three weeks. This amount greatly troubled me. 
I shrank from asking it, but was finally led, by a 
strange Providence to accept this fee/ 

"Again she says : T recommend students not 
to read so-called scientific works, antagonistic to 
Christian Science, which advocate materialistic 
systems ; because such works and words becloud 
the right sense of Metaphysical Science.' 

"Having thus impressed the duty of ignorance 
upon her disciples, she dubbed them, within three 
weeks or less, in consideration of the fee of $300, 
doctors of Christian Science, and bade them treat 
all diseases. The price was cheap enough. Bu- 
chanan's notorious college ofifered no easier 
terms. 

"In order that her students might 'enter the 
field of labor beneficially to themselves,' the 
shrewd Mother thus taught : 

" 'Christian Science demonstrates that the pa- 
tient who pays whatever he is able to pay for be- 
ing healed is more apt to recover than he wlio^ 
withholds a slight equivalent for health/ 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 35 

"And yet these people deny in Court, when ar- 
raigned for unlawful practice of medicine and 
manslaughter, that they demand fees for their 
services ! 

" 'In the early history of Christian Science/ 
aays Mrs. Eddy, 'among my thousands of stu- 
dents few were wealthy. Now Christian Scien- 
tists are not indigent ; and their comfortable for- 
tunes are acquired by healing mankind, morally, 
physically, spiritually/ 

"Mrs. Eddy adopts, in that part of 'Miscel- 
laneous Writings/ devoted to advertising her 
business, a clear type so remarkably like that of 
another famous lady of Lynn that it has caused 
her to be called 'the Lydia Pinkham of the Soul/ 

"The ordinary quack is content to lay claim to 
some special skill or knowledge in the use of 
natural methods or remedies. Thus, in Febru- 
ary, 1806, one John M. Crouse induced the Legis- 
lature of New York that in the following April 
chartered the existing county and State medical 
societies to authorize by special act the purchase 
for $1,000 and publication in the State papers of 
his 'perfect and infallible remedy and cure for 
hydrophobia or canine madness/ And a wonder- 
ful remedy it was. Here is the prescription, and 
it certainly seems adequate to put an end to hy- 
drophobia or any other malady : 

" 'First : Take one ounce of the jawbone of a 
dog, burned and pulverized, or pounded to fine 
dust. 



36 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

" 'Secondly : Take the false tongue of a newly 
foaled colt, let that be also pulverized ; and, 

" Thirdly : Take one scruple of verdigris, 
which is raised on the surface of old copper by 
I, or II, are the purest and best. Mix these in- 
lay ingit in the moist earth; thecoppersof George 
gredients together and if the person be an adult 
or full grown, take one common teaspoonful a 
day, and so in proportion to age. In one hour 
after take the filings of the one-half of a copper 
of the above kind, if to be had ; if not, then a small 
increased quantity of any baser metal of the kind ; 
this to be taken in a small quantity of water. 

"The next morning, fasting (or before eating), 
repeat the same as before. This, if complied with 
after the biting of a dog, and before the symp- 
toms of madness, will effectually prevent any 
appearance of disorder; but after the symptoms 
shall appear a physician must immediately be 
applied to, to administer the following: Three 
drachms of the verdigris of the kind before men- 
tioned, mixed with half an ounce of calomel, to 
be taken at one dose. This quantity the physician 
need not fear to administer, as the reaction of 
the venom will then diffuse through the whole 
system of the patient, neutralize considerably the 
powerful quality of the medicine ; and, 

"'Secondly: If in four hours thereafter the 
patient is not completely relieved, administer four 
grains of pure opium or one hundred and twentv 
drops of liquid laudanum. John M. Crouse. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 37 

"In the following year an act was passed pro- 
hibiting unlicensed practice of medicine, with the 
proviso, however, that it should not be construed 
to debar any one from using, or applying for the 
benefit of the sick, roots or herbs the growth or 
product of the United States, etc. 

"This system, once as popular as Christian 
Science, furnished the leading American case on 
manslaughter by medical malpractice. It there 
appeared that Samuel Thomson, founder of the 
system, undertook to cure 'all fevers, whether 
black, grey, green, or yellow/ His staple rem- 
edies were 'coffee/ so-called, 'gristle' and 'ram- 
cats/ Being summoned on Jan. 2, 1809, to at- 
tend Ezra Lovett, ill of 'a cold/ he ordered a 
fire built, put Lovett's feet on a stove of hot 
coals, wrapped him in a blanket, and, with a pow- 
der given in water 'puked' him — to use the simple 
language of the day — violently thrice within half 
an hour, meantime administering copiously the 
warm 'coffee/ He then put Lovett to bed, and 
sweated and 'puked' him pretty steadily for three 
days, the patient growing weaker and weaker, 
until, poor soul ! he could puke no more. Then 
Thomson asked 'how far down the medicine had 
got/ and, Lovett indicating his chest, the quack 
said that the medicine 'would soon get down and 
unscrew the disease/ On the third day the pa- 
tient 'lost his mind and went into convulsions/ 
which condition lasted until the eighth day, Jan. 
10, when he died. 



38 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

"While the ordinary quack, who, as has been 
said, pretends only to extraordinary human skill 
or knowledge, is, therefore, generally held to be 
a practitioner of medicine, Christian Scientists, 
who go further and pretend to procure for lucre 
divine intervention by their prayers, contend that 
in thus offering to heal the sick, although for 
hire, they are not practicing medicine, but ob- 
serving religious rites, and are therefore pro- 
tected in their practices by constitutional safe- 
guards. 

"As nearly as one can spell it out, this key, 
which, for purposes of lucre, Mrs. Eddy has copy- 
righted, is the stale theory, as old as philosophic 
speculation, familiar to Sophomores but new to 
her, that everything is Mind. Her corollary is 
that health is right thought, and disease, sickness 
and every other evil only wrong thought. Upon 
this theme, she rings her changes ; and it is safe 
to say, that had she confined herself to this pecu- 
liar exposition of Scripture, her congregations 
would have been small, and she would have re- 
mained an obscure eccentric New England wom- 
an, confessedly feeble in health and poor in pock- 
et. 

"Diagnosis, as physicians and ordinary laymen 
understand the term, does not exist in Mrs. Ed- 
dy's scheme. Under this principle it is quite un- 
necessary for the healer to come in contact with 
the patient. The one may be in Hong Kong, the 
other in Terra del Fuego. The effect will be 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 39 

just as great as if they were in conjunction. Now 
while as a theory, this arrant nonsense is merely 
comical, a moment's reflection shows that its 
practice is obviously dangerous in a high degree, 
not only to the particular victim but to the com- 
munity at large. That its promulgator is either 
dishonest in advancing it or doubtful of its full 
efficacy, seems apparent from her advice to dis- 
ciples to 'leave the adjustment of broken bones 
and dislocations to the fingers of a surgeon, until 
the advancing age admits the efficacy and su- 
premacy of Mind/ 

"Is not this advice of hers the cunning of the 
fox rather than a delusion of the other animal? 
Is it not manifestly a warning that while it is 
comparatively safe for her ignorant followers 
to treat the sick for rich reward, under the guise 
of religious aid, in cases of ordinary ailments, yet 
surgery is to be shunned by them, only because in 
that department of medicine, malpractice is more 
demonstrable to a lay jury than in physic, where 
the healing force of nature may be relied upon 
to give the Christianly scientific practitioner suc- 
cess in many cases, while his failures are more 
likely* to escape detection? 

"Let us concede, for argument's sake, what the 
Eddyites vehemently declare, that if a man be 
willing to subject himself to the treatment of 
Christian Science for any sickness, even small- 
pox, he should be allowed to do so; are we also 
to concede that he should be allowed to subject 



40 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

his infant children afflicted with that malady or 
scarlet fever, or malignant diphtheria to the same 
and no other treatment? Is he to be suffered to 
sacrifice his own offspring and also spread con- 
tagion? Common sense affords the answer. 

"Let us concede to the powers of suggestion all 
that is established and far more. Let us admit 
for the argument's sake, if not in fact, that even 
cancer may be cured, by convincing the patient 
that there is no such disease and that he is not 
afflicted with it; still we are not up with Mrs. 
Eddy. For that astounding person distinctly 
says that the healer must not name the disease, 
but must argue with it mentally ; that her methods 
are as efficacious for infants, in whose minds 
such suggestion cannot be planted, as for adults ; 
that oceans may roll between the healer and pa- 
tient, cutting off communication and therefore 
suggestion by any means that human science as 
yet admits to be possible. Thus she seems to 
eliminate from her theory the only grain of truth 
we have found in it, and deny the very cause that 
produces the results which follow its application 
in the restoration of the sick to the normal. 

"Let us illustrate, with a few examples, just 
what Christian Science demands the right to do 
ignorantly, and what its opponents say should 
only be attempted with knowledge and skill. 

"How horrible it is to imagine a case of pla- 
centa praevia, or an abnormal presentation in the 
hands of these mad people who pretend that the 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 41 

mere reading of Mrs. Eddy's book of jargon fits 
the reader to take care of any case of sickness or 
obstetrics ! Is it much if anything short of mur- 
der for an Eddyite, taught only by the contents 
of that dreary book to attend such cases as those 
supposed? Again, a child swallows poison; then 
there is a possibility — a probability — it may be 
a certainty — that competent medical aid season- 
ably called in will save the child : what is to be 
thought of the parent who calls in the ignorant 
Christian Scientist, what of the latter who men- 
tally argues with the symptoms of poisoning that 
he cannot recognize and excludes the necessary 
and efficient aid? Is he not a manslaughterer, 
nay a murderer? Once more, a case of smallpox, 
malignant diphtheria, or scarlet fever breaks out 
in a tenement house full of children ; medical aid 
being called may cure it or, at all events, recog- 
nizing the disease, may isolate the patient, disin- 
fect the premises and stop the spread of conta- 
gion. The Christian Scientist comes, in his crass 
ignorance denies that there is any disease present 
and sits down in solemn madness to argue with 
what he calls an erroneous belief of mortal mind 
— the contagion spreads and there is a new 
slaughter of innocents. Is not the so-called sci- 
entist a pest, and should he not be incarcerated in 
a prison or a madhouse where the community 
may be safe from him in the future? 

"Mrs. Eddy, as was fully pointed out in the 
North Aifierican Review for March, condemns 



42 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

not only drugs, remedies and instruments, but 
even hygiene, exercise and bathing. Her method 
of curing disease is first to deny its existence and 
then to argue with it as, one would argue with a 
Congressman. 

Under the heading "Its Legal Aspect'' Mr. 
Purrington says : 

"No statute can cure an adult of folly. Laws 
specifically forbidding the practice of Christian 
Science would only provide that cheap martyrdom 
which would be welcomed by an advertising bus- 
iness and would be wrong, both in principle and 
policy. The delusion itself is bound to die, as 
did that of John of Leyden and many another, 
before and since that prophet's time; and it is 
quite certain to be succeeded by others. 

"In New York City about 1832, a period of 
great awakening that begat Mormonism and 
many other sects — among them one in Kentucky, 
whose members in order to win Heaven by mak- 
ing themselves as little children, used to crawl 
on their hands and knees in church, play marbles, 
trundle hoops and otherwise manifest their in- 
fantile madness — one Matthew, a carpenter, hav- 
ing assumed the name Matthias, proclaimed him- 
self to be God, the Father. He found believers 
ignorant and intelligent, procured much money 
and ruined many persons. He and his disciples 
claimed to heal the sick quite as successfully as 
the Scientists now do. Matthias was eventually 
indicted, etc. The District Attorney claimed that 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 43 

to maintain the indictment he must prove the de- 
fendants were false and would deceive a man of 
ordinary intelligence and prudence, but no sane 
person would believe Matthias was God, nor can 
I establish the falsity of his statement by legal 
evidence. 

"The memory of the adventuress, Diss de Bar, 
is fresh. In 1888 she was convicted by a New 
York jury of fraud in obtaining money from a 
lawyer of admittedly large attainments. She, 
too, sought to cloud the real issue by claiming 
that the right to believe in spiritualism was in- 
volved. During- her trial the usual train of 'la- 
dies' and 'intelligent persons' attended her, one 
of her satellites being a former diplomat and an 
ex-regent of the university of the State. 

"That Christian Scientists frequently offend 
against the criminal law seems to be clear, and 
their prosecution in such cases would be of value 
if it enlightened the public as to 'their real teach- 
ing; for it seems scarcely possible that an in- 
telligent person becoming fully acquainted with 
'Science and Health' and its teaching, could fail 
to visit Mrs. Eddy's cult with condemnation as 
strong as that which she unsparingly lays on 
competing cults of faith curers, mind curers, ani- 
mal magnetists and clairvoyants, or that any one 
of taste and humor, after reading the 'poems' 
and quack advertisements of the 'Miscellaneous 
Writings' would not blush to confess himself a 



44 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

disciple of the new thought. Publicity will de- 
stroy the cult far more quickly than legislation.*' 

The first great trouble which surrounds the 
Christian Scientists is their lack of knowledge 
of cause and effect. They do not understand the 
rationale of their own treatment, and by her de- 
nial of matter Mrs. Eddy is the greatest stumb- 
ling-block of all. It is remarkable but true that 
people can always be found who will believe any 
foolish thing you tell them, and it seems some- 
times that the more improbable the statement 
the more readily do they believe it. Credulity 
is as old as humanity. It appears to be fed by 
an inexhaustible supply of ignorance and super- 
stition from within. Anything that is marvel- 
ous, miraculous, extraordinary or impossible, ap- 
peals to the unthinking mind with a force dif- 
ficult to understand. Perhaps the attraction re- 
sides in the contrast between these pretentious 
and unreal mysteries, and the hard, narrow, prac- 
tical lives of those who believe, and their igno- 
rance allows them to accept the illusion. 

What is called Christian Science is not new, 
though many people may suppose it is. Faith has 
existed since the first time the human mind was 
influenced by thought,, or suggestion from an- 
other. Suggestion is as old as the human race. 
Undoubtedly there are many intelligent people 
who believe in faith-cures. They have been in- 
formed, upon what they consider good author- 
ity, that certain miraculous cures had been made, 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 45 

later other evidence of cures came to their mind, 
and gradually they began to believe the claims 
were true. 

And they are true, for many cures are effected 
through faith; yet when we see superstitious 
healers treating the sick, we become disgusted 
and forget that the cure is effected by establish- 
ing confidence in the mind of the patient, and 
that even in their superstition, the healers may 
be able to establish this confidence. Some, whose 
faith is very strong, are cured at once and it be- 
comes blasphemous for them to worry any more, 
and they go about their work comforted and 
strengthened in the blissful belief that a special 
providence has been detailed to watch over them 
and administer to their needs. It is only sugges- 
tion, of course, but this suggestion strengthens 
the mind's influence over the body, and in many 
cases that is all that is needed. 

This is true, and it is useless to unite against 
the healers or try to make laws to punish 
them. That will only advertise them, throw 
a halo of martyrdom around them and they 
are successfull enough without it. Better 
learn the secret of their success, separate 
it from the ignorance and superstition which 
surrounds it, impart to it the knowledge ob- 
tained by higher education and broader 
culture, and use it as one more weapon or means 
with which to combat human suffering. 

Every disease produces its own peculiar con 



46 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

dition of mind, and to cure the mind often cures 
the disease. When some healer — and healer — 
throws the veil of illusion over the hard, grim 
realities of life, it is good sense to believe that a 
cure is more easily effected. We can think our- 
selves into a state of subjective disease by brood- 
ing over the subject. The key to disease may 
often be found in our habits. Habit controls 
and regulates our being to a remarkable extent. 
Physical habits influence the mind, and the mind 
reacts upon the body. Mental culture will in- 
crease bodily resistance. Correct habits and a 
healthy mental attitude toward the world in gen- 
eral, is a powerful aid in overcoming the minor 
cures and ills. A healthy mental attitude results 
in a vigorous brain, and a vigorous brain scarcely 
observes the minor problems of life, but disposes 
of them mechanically. If a brain has been weak- 
ened, debilitated, or atrophied from inertia, or 
narrowed from monotonous routine, its activity 
is crippled and the whole organism suffers, the 
general physical tone is lowered and the want of 
harmony easily develops into disease. 

Now if confidence can be restored and the m^nd 
brought back to its normal force, it will be a 
powerful aid in the return to health, and this is 
what the healers attempt to do. They do not 
give medicine to a tortured mind, but endeavor 
to stimulate faith and hope; this gives energy 
and ambition, every fiber possesses greater pos- 
sibilities, this increases the digestive powers. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 47 

stimulates nutrition, increases the physical force, 
the mental faculties are strengthened, ambition 
returns, and the man begins to be himself again. 
The man does not possess any more power to 
overcome disease or to maintain health than he 
did before he was treated by the healer, he is 
simply using the power he already possessed. 
That power is the mind. Through the influence 
of the healer the mind has been stimulated to ac- 
tion, has been developed and improved, has been 
educated in self-control, just as it has been or 
may be in mathematics or chemistry, though not 
by the same power of reasoning*. There is noth- 
ing strange or wonderful about mind-cures, un- 
less we call the mind wonderful, but the man 
possessed the mind before he saw the healer. 

Mrs. Eddy claims to reduce dislocation by 
faith. It is quite probable that Mrs. Eddy does 
not know the difference between a bruise or 
sprain and a dislocation, and perhaps the great- 
est prejudice against her and her subhealers is 
caused by their ignorance regarding human anat- 
omy. Yet with many this does not lessen the 
power of suggestion. If the power of sugges- 
tion were better understood its good effects might 
be increased and its evils guarded against. 

The Christian Scientists claim to receive di- 
vine aid, that the Divine Ruler delegates to them 
a special power to care for each individual case. 
That is superstition. These cures can all be ac- 
counted- for on a natural basis. Many people 



48 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

have known the sight of the forceps to stop tooth- 
ache for a time. No one claims that such an ex- 
perience was the result of spirits or Divine inter- 
ference. Many old soldiers remember imaginary 
injuries in some battle. They thought they were 
shot, they could feel the blood trickling from 
the wound, while a supposedly injured arm or 
foot lay helpless until they discovered their mis- 
take. No one claims that these experiences were 
the result of spirits or Divine interference. It 
was only the influence of mind over body. 

Every organ or part of the body has a corres- 
ponding brain-center, i. e., certain parts of the 
brain control certain organs or parts of the body, 
and when the organ or part is diseased or injured, 
complaint is sent to that part of the brain which 
controls. So also, when a part of the brain is 
diseased or disturbed, and while the organ which 
that part of the brain controls may show no signs 
of ailment, yet pain will be referred to it. To il- 
lustrate, a man who has had a foot amputated 
still imagines the foot pains, him, because that 
part of the brain which controlled the foot has 
been irritated by disease or accident, and also by 
the amputation, and cannot be quieted until it has 
become accustomed to the change, or until it 
atrophies (shrinks.) This happens frequently, 
and fills the minds of some with fear, yet no one 
claims that these experiences are the results of 
spirits or Divine interference. All understand 
it is imagination. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 49 

Certain circumstances or conditions produce 
certain beliefs and sometimes this belief controls 
our actions to a remarkable extent as stated. We 
can and sometimes do think ourselves into a state 
of subjective disease. After certain manipula- 
tions we think we are well. The soldier thought 
he was shot, then that he was not. The man 
thought his amputated foot pained him, then he 
thought it did not. 

William Osier, M. D., F. R. S., Professor of 
Medicine in the Johns Hopkins University and a 
recognized authority, says : "After all, faith is 
the great lever of life. Without it man could do 
nothing; with it, even with a fragment, as a 
grain of mustard seed, all things are possible to 
him. Faith in us, faith in our drugs and 
methods is the great stock in trade of the pro- 
fession. In one pan of the balance put the 
pharmacopceas of the world, all the editions from 
Dioscorides to the last issue of the United States 
Dispensatory, heap them on the scales as did 
Euripides his books in the celebrated contest in 
the Frogs ; in the other put the simple faith with 
which from the days of the Pharaohs until now 
the children of men have swallowed the mixtures 
these works describe, and the bulky volumes will 
kick the beam. 

"It is the aurum potabile, the touchstone of 
success in medicine. As Galen says, 'confidence 
and hope do more good than physics — he cures 



50 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

most in whom most are confident/ Faith in the 
gods or in the saints cures one, faith in little pills 
another, 'hypnotic suggestion a third, faith in a 
plain country doctor a fourth. In all ages the 
prayer of faith has healed the sick, and the mental 
attitude of the suppliant seems to be of more 
consequence than the power to which the prayer 
is addressed. The cures in the temple of Escu- 
lapius (the god of medicine,) the miracles of the 
saints, the remarkable cures of those noble men, 
the Jesuit missionaries, in this country, the 
modern miracles at Lourdes and at St. Anne de 
Beaupre in Quebec, and the wonder-workings of 
the so-called Ghristian Science, are often genuine 
and must be considered in discussing the founda- 
tion of therapeutics. We physicians use the 
same power every day. If a poor lass, paralyzed 
apparently, helpless, bed-ridden for years, comes 
to me, having worn out in mind, body, and estate, 
a devoted family ; if she in a few weeks or less by 
faith in me, and faith alone, takes up her bed and 
walks, the saints of old could not have done 
more. 

"One mode of faith healing in modern days, 
which passes under the name of 'Ghristian 
Science/ is probably nothing more than mental 
suggestion under another name." 

The Christian Scientists, the Faith-Healers, 
Mind-Healers, Prayer-Healers, Spirit-Healers, 
Natural-Healers, the Mesmerist, Hypnotist, 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 51 

Spiritualist, the layer on of hands, and the Indian 
Medicine-man, can and will cure some diseases 
as long as they produce dominant ruling impres- 
sions. 

We all understand that in any kind of sickness 
or disease, where the patient is hopeful, the pros- 
pects of recovery are greatly increased. If the 
patient is discouraged and despondent, the case 
is more grave, and it is good sense to believe that 
in many cases such despondency is directly re- 
sponsible for a fatal termination. If the patient 
has a confidence, a belief that he is going to get 
well, such belief stimulates the mind, which re- 
acts upon the body, increasing the energies, the 
vital powers are strengthened, and there results 
a determination that wields a powerful influence 
in checking disease. Every doctor understands 
the advantage of having a cheerful nurse to at- 
tend his patients, understands the advantage of 
being cheerful himself while in the presence of 
the sick, understands that if his patient has con- 
fidence in him he will be much more successful, 
because this confidence and hope stimulate the 
flagging energies, thus inducing the return to 
health. Here the doctor is working on the faith- 
cure plan, but the doctor w r orks intelligently, 
works on the principle of cause and effect, he un- 
derstands that every condition is the result of a 
natural cause, that every disease is the result of a 
natural cause, and that every cure is the result 
of a natural cause. 



52 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

Under the heading "Suggestion in Medicine," 
a prominent doctor writes the Medical Brief of 
August, 1899, as follows: "I believe if every 
physician would pay more attention to sugges- 
tion, suggestive therapeutics, hypnotism, hyp- 
notic therapeutics, or call it what you will, there 
would be less room for Christian Scientists, Mag- 
netic Healers, Faith-Curists, and various other 
fads. It all comes under the head of Hypnotism, 
or more properly speaking, suggestive therapeu- 
tics. I believe this science should be taught in 
medical colleges. Some of our post-graduate 
schools are beginning to recognize its utility, and 
have established chairs for its teaching. 

"Every physician should either read some good 
book on the subject, or take a post-graduate 
course where it is taught. I have found it of 
wonderful benefit to me in treating some nervous 
diseases, and especially so in giving treatment 
for the morphine and opium habits. The in- 
fluence of the subjective mind is undoubtedly a 
great factor in treating any of the habits," etc. 

Many will be surprised to know that our lead- 
ing medical colleges teach what the doctor very 
properly calls "Suggestive Therapeutics." Sug- 
gestive therapeutics means curing or trying to 
cure disease by influencing the mind. Again the 
Medical Brief says editorially in the September 
number, 1899, "Not long ago an institute giving 
what is called 'Absent treatment' to sick appli- 
cants, was investigated by the United States au- 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 53 

thorities on a charge of fraud. The result of the 
investigation showed that sixty-seven per cent 
of those treated declared themselves cured, or 
much benefited. Thirty per cent had received 
some relief, and only three per cent were in no 
way benefited by the treatment. " 

Such statements were voluntary and must set 
people to thinking. These people say they were 
benefited through the power of suggestion. Sug- 
gestion is gradually modifying the theory and 
practice of medicine. 

Suggestion and Faith-Cure are the same. Sug- 
gestion is practised by many physicians. Every 
doctor of experience understands perfectly well 
the benefits of a "placebo." This is some harmless 
remedy, as bread pills or colored water, given to 
please* a sensitive mind. Some physicians strive 
by other means to influence the minds of their 
patients. Others influence the mind unconscious- 
ly; their presence alone establishes a confidence 
which medicine cannot give. Others are cured 
by prayer. The attitude o>f the healer, the earn- 
est supplication of those who ask for Divine de- 
liverance, establishes in the mind of the sufiferer 
a belief that he is going to get well, and in some 
cases this belief acts so powerfully that the pa- 
tients leave the sick-bed at once, and mingle with 
their friends. These are exhibitions of the mind's 
influence over the body. Perhaps many of these 
cases present no organic lesion, or if such lesion 
is present it might render the individual discour- 



54 christian;science. 

aged and despondent. This would greatly in- 
crease the subjective symptoms, and the patient 
would seem to be much worse than he really was. 
In such cases the healer would have the same op- 
portunity to arouse the latent energies, restore 
the equilibrium, and cure the despondency, and 
the patient would be much improved. 

Can the healers cure organic disease? That 
depends upon how far the disease has progressed. 
Hope will never remove connective tissue over- 
growth, yet it may prevent its further develop- 
ment, and prevent other degenerative changes. 
Hope and a contented mind may do this through 
their influence over digestion and assimilation; 
these may be so improved as to repair much ©f the 
damage done. As evidence of the mind's in- 
fluence over digestion, we all know that during 
or after a hearty meal certain thoughts or sights 
will not only check digestion, but in many cases 
there will be a reaction and the stomach empties 
itself at once. Everybody knows that laughter 
and good- will aid, and anger, revenge and jeal- 
ousy hinder, digestion. In each case it is the 
result of the mind's influence over the body. 

What seems wonderful to some is that the 
Christian Scientists can treat people from a dis- 
tance. Yet a patient at a distance can be treated 
as successfully as one near by. Usually, perhaps 
always, the patients understand the day and hour 
they are to - be treated, and their whole thought 
and attention is fixed upon the treatment. This 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 55 

establishes the same confidence as though the 
healer were in the room. If the patients did not 
know the exact hour of treatment, their minds 
would be centered upon the subject all the time, 
and the result would be the same. If people 
would look at faith-cures from a rational stand- 
point they would find nothing wonderful or su- 
pernatural in the results. 

Do the healers really cure so many diseases? 
No, nor the doctors either, for a careful gathering 
of the facts show T s that only ten per cent of those 
who call a physician really need a doctor. This 
percentage is given out by some of our leading 
medical colleges. The ninety per cent need only 
such care and attention as they can administer 
themselves. A little thought along this line is 
all that is required. Restrict the amount and 
regulate the quality of the food, pay attention 
to elimination, etc. But suppose there is real 
need for a physician and one is called. This one 
is just out of college. He grasps his medicine- 
case and rushes forth. To what? The doctor 
himself would like to know to what. Oh, yes, 
besides his medicine-case he has a theory and a 
diploma. Has he ever seen a case like the one 
to which he is going? No. 

Ever heard of one? May-be. 

The patient would not have an Eclectic? No. 

Nor a Homeopath? Never. 

Nor a Healer? Not in a thousand years. 

Some doctors when they see a patient know in- 



5(3 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

tuitively what the trouble is, i. e., they under- 
stand without conscious thought or reasoning. 

Does this doctor so understand? X-n-n-not 
exactly. 

Is he in a hurry to see .the patient? Xo, not 
in any very great hurry. 

Is he afraid? Oh, my ! no ! 

While in college did he study hard, and did he 
belong to a hospital class ? Was the greater part 
of his instruction received in the hospital wards, 
at the bedside of the sick ? Was such instruction 
given by competent demonstrators ? No, you see 
it was this way : He did not have time for all 
these things, for he belonged to a football team, 
and had to keep his hair parted in the middle, go 
to the theatres, etc. Or he may have been some 
rich man's son, and after some industrious stu- 
dent had gained the necessary information, he 
could buy the student's notes, pass his examina- 
tion and thus save time. Or, again, he may have 
spent most of his time in the bacteriological de- 
partment, learning to say micrococcus pyogenes 
aureus, diplococcus intracellularis meningitidis, 
schizomycetes, actinomycosis, etc. 

. Can he apply such knowledge to the treatment 
of disease? No. 

As a rule how long does the student remember 
his bacteriological teaching? About fifteen min- 
utes. 

Of what practical benefit is such knowledge? 
None. 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 57 

And the patient would not have any other 
brand of doctor? No, because the others would 
not understand the case. Yet there is no doubt 
that in many cases somie Healers, those who 
possess strong personalities, would do far more 
to arouse the patient and effect a cure. 

Phantom tumors are perhaps among the best 
evidence of the mind's influence over the body. 
Many physicians have had experience with pa- 
tients who believed they had a tumor. The seem- 
ing growth gradually became larger, until an 
operation was decided upon, but when the pa- 
tient was placed upon the operating table and the 
chloroform given the tumor disappeared. This 
has happened in some of our best medical col- 
leges, and was simply an example of the result 
of imagination. This imagination produced cer- 
tain impressions upon that part of the brain con- 
trolling the region of the supposed tumor. These 
impressions acted as a stimulus to the nerves sup- 
plying the muscles around and over the phantom 
growth, and the muscles began to contract. With 
such contraction and enlargement the mind be- 
came still more affected, and the impression upon 
the brain more fixed. This in turn stimulated 
still more the nerve-supply, and thus the tumor 
grew. When under the influence of chloroform 
the system was completely relaxed, and the part 
returned to the normal. No one pretends that 
phantom tumors are the result of Divine inter- 
ference. 



58 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

The gold-cure for drunkenness is another evi- 
dence of the mind's influence over the body. It is 
stated that patients are given hypodermic injec- 
tions of chloride of gold and sodium. The brig-ht 
yellow color imparted by the chloride of gold 
makes a favorable impression upon the mind of 
the patient. Patients are given some tonic rem- 
edy to take by the stomach, . and all the whisky 
they want to drink. That is not all, or most im- 
portant. With the chloride of gold injection 
there is said to be added a small dose of apomor- 
phine. This is an artificial product made from 
morphine. Apomorphine in full doses produces 
vomiting, but in these cases just enough is added 
to produce nausea, the patient feels sick, and 
thinks it is the chloride of gold changing his ap- 
petite. Sometimes instead of using the apomor- 
phine, tartar emetic is added direct to the whisky, 
This will also produce a feeling of sickness. The 
more whisky the patient drinks the sicker he gets. 
Undoubtedly many who take the cure understand 
there is a trick somewhere, but they do not care, 
they are disgusted with themselves, take the cure 
and ask no questions. They have a chance to get 
sober and obtain a new lease of life. Gold-cure 
doctors have the advantage over the Christian 
Scientists, as their treatment is more popular. 
The gold-doctors have another advantage, the 
patient can feel the prick of the needle, see the 
gold, feel the effects (of the apomorphine or tar- 
tar emetic), while in the case of the Christian 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 59 

Scientists the patient must have faith without 
sight. That is why some cases treated by the 
Christian Scientists are difficult at the beginning. 
It takes some time to establish confidence. One 
thought he had the toothache ; another thought 
his amputated foot pained him. The old soldier 
thought he was shot. Another thought he had 
a tumor, and still another thought his appetite 
was changed, etc., etc. 

These cases could be multiplied at great length. 
They all seemed to be real, yet they were all 
false ; and serve to show the influence of the mind 
over the body. 

Neither of these mind-cures or the physician 
can compare with the hypnotist. The hypnotist 
can make his patient believe he is anything from 
the missing link to the father of our country. He 
can cause a staggering gait or cure drunkenness, 
cause pain or stop pain, and while the patient is 
in this condition, if he is told to go the next day 
at four o'clock to some certain place and turn 
his coat inside out, he will do so, although he 
has before this been brought out from under the 
influence. 

The following notes on hypnotism are taken 
largely from the writings of X. La Matte Sage, 
P.H.D., L.L.D. 

The key to hypnotism is suggestion, with ex- 
pectant attention upon the part of the hypnotized. 
If a man who has never heard of hypnotism looks 
at a revolving mirror without being told why, a 



60 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

drowsy condition which merges into sleep en- 
sues. Explain to him the nature of the mirror, 
however, i. e., arouse expectant attention, and 
hypnotism is produced in many cases. 

The highest authorities on hypnotism tell us 
that it is within itself absolutely harmless. The 
most susceptible subjects are said to be intelli- 
gent people having strong minds and will-power. 
This is contrary to the belief of many who think 
only weak-minded people can be hypnotized. 
Hypnotism is not a conflict of will-power, as the 
person hypnotized may have a very much 
stronger will than the operator. There is a wide- 
spread delusion that hypnotism is some special, 
august, or awe-inspiring power, through the 
medium of which its possessor dominates the 
minds of others. But this is not true. It is dif- 
ficult to hypnotize people of a low order of intel- 
ligence, as it is difficult for them to understand 
what you want them to do. And often they have 
not the mental training sufficient to produce a 
ready concentration of mind. For these reasons 
idiots, the insane and children under the age of 
understanding, cannot be hypnotized. Certain 
faculties of the mind act as sentinels and inquire 
into the nature of things. These are called ob- 
jective faculties. What are called the subjective 
faculties are supposed to be incapable of reason- 
ing, but they are thought to be those faculties in 
which memory rests. It is the objective or reason- 
ing faculties that are lulled under the influence 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 61 

of suggestion and the subjective faculties remain 
normal. 

Perhaps all have read or heard of cases in 
which people have been hypnotized and allowed 
to remain in a trance condition, yet such state- 
ments are absolutely without foundation. Such 
statements come from those with preconceived 
ideas, and such people, even if they are educated, 
use very little judgment regarding hypnotism or 
anything else. Sensational reports regarding hyp- 
notism are the result oi ignorance, or a desire to 
deceive. Any case will recover in a few days 
in spite of the operator. 

It is easy to convince superstitious minds that 
hypnotism does great harm, notably in spreading 
the knowledge of a science, which they firmly be- 
lieve emanates from the devil, or if not that, they 
are opposed to letting a dreadful (?) and 
mighty (?) power loose in the land. Ignorance 
and superstition cry out against hypnotism, and 
the unwarranted assumption of this class allows 
their antagonism to run so high as to advocate 
suppression by law. Such acts remind us of the 
dark ages when our ancestors issued edicts 
againt everything not strictly in accordance w r ith 
their own peculiar notions. 

The highest authorities hold that in the hyp- 
notic state an honest man cannot be made to 
steal, nor a moral man to commit murder, and no 
one can be compelled to perform any act contrary 
to any well-settled moral principle. Self-sugges- 



62 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 

tion is stronger than the suggestion of the hyp- 
notist, and when the hypnotist gives a command 
opposed to the subject's own suggestion or moral 
belief, he will refuse to act. These are facts re- 
corded by the most able experimenters, and prov- 
en by practical demonstration. 

There is no instance on record in which anyone 
has ever divulged a secret while under hypnotic 
influence, although it has been tried over and 
over again. Hypnotism is of no value in extort- 
ing confessions from criminals. People will tell 
falsehoods during the hypnotic state, the same 
as they will in the natural state. 

A subject of good moral character cannot be 
induced by hypnotic suggestion to perform any 
act which he would consider immoral while 
awake. 

Many people are firm in the belief that hypno- 
tism is the work of an evil spirit, yet its sim- 
plicity may be realized by remembering that hyp- 
notism may be self-induced by concentrating the 
mind, showing beyond a doubt that it is a sub- 
jective condition, i. e., exists in the mind of the 
subject. The operator merely assists the subject 
to enter the state. All this shows the result of the 
mind's influence over the body. 

Camp meeting conversions ( ?) where the con- 
vert falls to the ground unconscious are also ex- 
amples. 

The first messenger announces the death of a 
friend. The second says the friend is not dead 



CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 63 

but improving. The first messenger causes grief, 
the second joy. 

The man who works for seventy-five cents a 
day will tell you he is blue, and the man who 
works for five dollars a day will tell you he is 
happy. Change places with the men and each 
will tell you exactly the opposite. With some 
darkness brings a sense of fear as they believe 
there is danger. The morning light brings joy 
as they believe there is no danger. A man enters 
the doctor's office : 

He had a madly jumping tooth. 

The pain was grievous, very. 

He only laughed and said., forsooth, 

It's all imaginary. 
Was it imaginary It may have been real pain, 
but it stopped because the patient was afraid the 
cruel forceps would produce greater pain. In 
this instance the mind was influenced through 
fear. 

These different beliefs are but different ex- 
pressions of the same mind. Joy is an expression 
of the mind, so are love. hate, pleasure and pain. 
So is instinct. Instinct is the source of all knowl- 
edge, it precedes the birth of reason, logic, in- 
vention and other faculties of the mind, just as 
the elements precede the compounds into which 
they enter. Music is the outgrowth of instinct ; 
so are the different religions. In a thousand 
ways we see that the human mind may be led like 
a child. Many descriptions are given of the 



64 CHRISTIAN SCIENCE. 



mind, also many divisions of its powers, yet the 
mind is as fathomless as space. Poets and meta- 
physicians talk about the innate power of the 
mind. Some tell us the mind is a disembodied 
soul. The mind cannot be comprehended, ex- 
plained, analyzed or reduced to materiality, any 
more than we can analyze the tornado, put the 
thunder-cloud in our vest-pocket, or quaff light- 
ning as a beverage. 

"The theorists may put on their robes of mys- 
tery, arm each eye with a microscope, each fin- 
ger with the keenest sensibility of the phrenol- 
ogist, stimulate their mental powers and their 
imagination to the highest pitch, tax specula- 
tion one hundred per cent, and they cannot weave 
the faintest material fiber of the mind." 



DISEASE. 



Barring accident, injury or abnormal develop- 
ment, disease is the result of some disturbance of 
the digestive organs. 

The different diseases are but different ex- 
pressions of one cause, namely, auto or self in- 
fection. I know there are many who do not agree 
with this statement, not yet, but gradually they 
are being converted to reason and better judg- 
ment. Gradually the theorist is letting go some 
of his faith in germs and accepting a more rea- 
sonable teaching. 

The human system produces enough poison in 
twenty-four to thirty-six hours to destroy life 
if it were retained in the body. This poison is 
the natural waste and worn out matter which in 
health is eliminated and replaced by the food that 
we eat. Many of the diseases named in this chap- 
ter are more clearly described under alcohol. 
They may be caused by alcohol or tobacco, by im- 
proper food, by rapid eating, by eating and drink- 
ing too much, by too much strong tea and coffee, 
by late suppers, by irregular and careless habits, 
by decayed teeth, by a lack of exercise and of 
fresh air, by too much hard work, by laziness, by 
exposure, by improper Nothing, or by some form 
of excess. 



66 DISEASE. 

All realize the importance of eating, but the 
necessity of equal elimination is but imperfectly 
appreciated. 

So long as waste and repair are equal, and the 
waste is eliminated as fast as produced, health is 
the result ; but when the equilibrium is disturbed, 
disease is the result. It is understood, of course, 
that there may be a natural increase, or decrease ; 
i. e., should a man commence the blacksmith's or 
the carpenter's trade, there would be an increase 
in the muscles of the arm using the hammer or 
the saw ; should he change his occupation there 
might be a decrease in the same muscles. In the 
first instance there would be an excess of growth 
over waste, and in the second an excess of waste 
over growth, yet neither would indicate disease. 

When the blood is poor and the circulation 
sluggish, the little cells and tissues of the body 
lose their vitality from a lack of nourishment, and 
it is this condition that opens the door to disease. 

It is estimated that the network of blood-ves- 
sels which envelop the body, and which lie just 
beneath the skin, are capable of holding one-half 
the blood in the system. This is evidence that 
nature has designed free peripheral circulation. 

In health the average amount eliminated 
through the skin is about twenty- four ounces in 
twenty-four hours. This watery exudate con- 
tains from two to four per cent of solid matter. 
Should a part of this be retained in the system, 
it would act as an irritant or poison, and produce 



DISEASE. 67 

a low form of inflammation or disease. Should 
all be retained it would produce death. 

Cold stimulates the nerves supplying the sweat- 
glands and the peripheral vessels, and they con- 
tract. This locks up the secretions and causes 
congestion of the internal organs, and digestion 
is interfered with. This increases the waste and 
irritating substances. This condition usually re- 
sults from improper food, rapid eating, etc., as 
already stated. 

Elimination relieves congestion and inflamma- 
tion, causes free circulation, flushes the capilla- 
ries or small blood-vessels, carries away waste, 
restores normal resistance to external influences, 
and thus wards off disease. 

Digestion, assimilation and elimination, are the 
foundation stones of life and health. 

Disease is an indication that waste and poison- 
ous matter is retained in the system and^must be 
removed before permanent improvement can be 
hoped for. If two pounds of food are taken into 
the system, two pounds of waste must be elimi- 
nated, or the health will suffer. 

When elimination is checked, the waste blocks 
the circulation, causing congestion, first in those 
organs doing the most work, because they pro- 
duce the most waste. With poor digestion, faulty 
elimination, and a lack of nourishment which 
must follow, the whole system is weakened and 
depressed, and there may result chronic bron- 
chitis, pneumonia, consumption, rheumatism, dis- 



68 DISEASE. 

ease of the heart, brain and spinal cord, Bright's 
disease, or any other ailment. Some being liable 
to one and some to another, according to their 
several powers of resistance. 

Dyspepsia is usually accompanied by constipa- 
tion. Following this comes degenerative changes 
in the digestive tract and the production of poi- 
sons, some of which enter the circulation, and 
gradually the individual is overcome. The ner- 
vous system is bathed with impurities and loses 
its sensitiveness and power to control, the brain 
becomes clouded and dull, a sense of languor and 
indisposition pervades the whole being, the ac- 
tivity of the tissues or cells is diminished, their 
power to select nourishment is lessened, the blood 
lacks the normal elements, and the most shat- 
tered state of the vital forces exists. Ambition 
and energy are gone, and that "tired feeling," so 
dear to the patent-medicine shark, takes pos- 
session. This condition may exist for months in 
a mild form, the individual keeping about his 
work, or may explode suddenly, producing great 
prostration. 

The trouble usually commences in the stom- 
ach. The irritation paralyzes more or less the 
delicate nerves supplying the blood-vessels. They 
lose control, the vessels dilate and too much blood 
is the result. The mucous membrane lining the 
stomach is thickened and swollen, the digestive 
fluid becomes changed in quality, it lacks the di- 
gestive power, and the secretions become thick 



DISEASE. G9 

and tenacious, the result of catarrh of the stom- 
ach. 

The septic condition of the digestive tract may 
result in appendicitis, typhoid fever, or peritoni- 
tis (inflammation of the membrane surrounding 
the digestive tract.) It may cause chronic ca- 
tarrh, tuberculosis, or cancer of the stomach. Tu- 
berculosis of the digestive tract in adults rarely 
occurs unless other parts of the body are invaded 
first. 

In nearly all cases of fatal chronic diseases of 
the heart, brain, lungs, kidneys, rheumatism, etc., 
we are told that a careful examination of the . 
mucous membrane of the digestive tract will 
show numerous traces of disease, inflammatory 
thickening and ulceration. "In may instances 
the mucous membrane of the stomach is found 
detached, leaving the inner surface of the or- 
gan raw and granular." Many of the glands 
that furnish the digestive fluids are narrowed or 
destroyed. The ducts which convey the bile and 
pancreatic fluids (digestive fluids) are often con- 
tracted and thickened. This prevents, more or 
less, the flow of these fluids, and digestion suf- 
fers in proportion. 

In health the higher forms of digestion are 
carried on in the circulation, but with the con- 
dition described such digestive changes do not 
take place, or rather the change in the digestive 
organs and fluids permits an ever-increasing 
amount of waste to enter the circulation, and 



70 DISEASE. 

these irritating substances result in a low form of 
inflammation. 

The bile-duct opens into the digestive tract 
three and one-half inches below the stomach. 
During congestion or chronic inflammation from 
septic blood, this duct may become closed, ob- 
structing the flow of bile, which now seeks other 
means of escape, some passing out through the 
skin, producing its characteristic color called 
jaundice. This condition is also indicated by a 
bitter taste in the mouth. 

With fermentation in the stomach the taste is 
sour, because the stomach produces acids. 

The return circulation from the digestive tract 
passes through the liver, hence any poisons re- 
sulting from poor digestion are carried direct to 
this organ, and result in inflammation and en- 
largement, or may be followed by liver abscess, 
fatty degeneration, cancer, etc. The kidneys are 
small organs, yet they contain a comparatively 
large amount of blood, hence poor digestion and 
a disordered system may produce a low form of 
inflammation and Bright's disease, which has 
been more fully described in the chapter on al- 
cohol. 

Passing through the circulatory system the 
septic blood affects the arteries, producing chron- 
ic inflammation. The arteries first thicken and 
then become soft and flabby, the result of degen- 
erative changes. The arteries lose their elasticity, 
and there results a lack of nourishment in the 



DISEASE. 71 

tissues or organs supplied by the diseased vessels, 
or the vessels may rupture. The small arteries 
are most liable to injury, as they are thinner and 
more easily destroyed. A blood-clot may form 
at the point and prevent hemorrhage. This clot 
is called a thrombus. It would stop the circu- 
lation, and the part or tissues supplied by this 
artery would lack nourishment, die, degenerate 
and soften, or an abscess may form. If 
in the stomach it would cause ulcer. The dis- 
eased arteries may gradually narrow without a 
blood-clot until the nutrition is so far shut off 
that softening may occur. 

Some of the changes in the arteries are nat- 
urally the result of old age, yet as a result of 
septic blood and a disordered system, they may 
be, and are frequently, met in the young and 
those of middle life. Any condition that inter- 
feres with digestion or lessens oxidation may 
produce fatty degeneration of the heart, kidneys, 
liver, brain and other tissues. These changes 
are more fully described under alcohol. 

HICCOUGH. 

The diaphragm is a thin membrane which di- 
vides the chest from the abdominal cavity, and 
aids in respiration, rising and falling with each" 
breath. The stomach is placed just beneath the 
diaphragm. The diaphragm passes obliquely 
backward and downward, hence it is not only 
above but partially behind the stomach. 



72 DISEASE. 

During indigestion the stomach may become 
very irritable and sensitive. The constipation 
which follows causes bloating and pressure and 
this increases the trouble. The stomach is forced 
upward^ and irritates the diaphragm. 

The solar plexus is a large collection of nerves 
situated just behind the stomach. Irritation may 
be communicated through this bundle of nerves, 
as it receives branches from both the stomach 
and diaphragm. Any condition which stim- 
ulates the diaphragm may result in hiccough, 
as the mechanism of its production rests upon 
the contraction of the diaphragm down- 
ward. This is so sudden that it causes a vacuum 
in the chest. The outside air now attempts to 
rush into the lungs, but is prevented by the sud- 
den closure of the glottis, the space between the 
vocal cords through which the air passes. This 
produces the peculiar sound known as hiccough. 

Why does the glottis close at this time more 
than during ordinary breathing? Because the 
spasmodic action of the diaphragm against the 
stomach causes spasm of this organ also, andi:he 
same nerve which supplies the stomach supplies 
the vocal cords, hence every spasm of the dia- 
phragm being conveyed to the stomach is flashed 
over the nerve-fibers 'to the vocal cords and they 
contract, closing the space between them. 

Hiccough usually stops without attention. 
Sometimes the trouble is persistent and is said to 
cause death. Hiccough never causes death. It is 



DISEASE. 73 

only a symptom. It is the septic condition of the 
digestive tract that causes death. Free elimina- 
tion will usually relieve the trouble. 

Hiccough may be caused by inflammation of 
the upper part of the spinal cord, as that part of 
the cord situated in the neck sends out the nerves 
which pass downward through the chest cavity 
and supply the diaphragm, and the inflammation 
might so irritate and excite these nerves as to 
cause spasmodic action, as described. 

A tumor in the lungs may cause pressure upon 
these nerves and result in irritation and spasm. 
The same nerve that supplies the lungs also sup- 
plies the stomach, and through the solar plexus 
cbmmunicates with the nerve supplying the dia- 
phragm ; hence the irritation from a tumor in 
any part of the lungs may cause spasm and hic- 
cough. 

Hiccough may result from a strangulated her- 
nia, because the nerves which supply the digestive 
tract also communicate with the solar plexus and 
thus with the diaphragm. 

Peritonitis or inflammation of the thin mem- 
brane which surrounds the digestive tract may 
also cause hiccough. 

GLYCOSURIA, OR DIABETES MELLITUS. 

During digestion the starch contained in the 
different food-products is converted into glucose 
or grape-sugar. This is absorbed and carried by 
the veins direct to the liver, where some of it is 



74 DISEASE. 

converted into a substance called glycogen, and 
this is stored up by the liver-cells and delivered 
to the circulation as the system requires. As a 
result of indigestion and lack of nourishment 
the liver may become unhealthy and unable to 
convert the glucose into glycogen, and then there 
is too much glucose or grape-sugar in the circu- 
lation. 

The system cannot oxidize so much, and pass- 
ing through the circulation it irritates and weak- 
ens the kidneys, until some of it finds its way into 
the secreting tubes and is eliminated. 

Primarily this is called glycosuria, or diabetes, 
later it produces Bright's disease. 

In health the glucose or grape-sugar is oxid- 
ized, i. e., unites with the oxygen from the air 
we breathe. This produces heat and aids in 
maintaining the bodily temperature r but the sys- 
tem cannot oxidize the excessive amount present 
in diabetes, hence its appearance through the kfd- 
neys, and later Bright's disease. 

The cause of glycosuria has never been given. 
Medical authors have charged the disease to the 
liver, kidneys, pancreas, brain, "some undiscov- 
ered condition of the nervous system," etc. Un- 
doubtedly the first cause of this disease is found 
in the lowering effects of dyspepsia and retained 
waste. This results in a lack of nourishment, the 
nervous system becomes weakened and irritated, 
and the different organs cannot properly per- 
form their work. The liver is unable to con- 



DISEASE. 75 

vert the glucose into glycogen and too much 
grape-sugar is permitted to circulate through the 
system. This acts as an irritant and increases 
the trouble, the liver becomes inflamed and dis- 
ease follows. This corresponds to the condition 
o-f the liver, for it is inflamed and enlarged. 

A diseased stomach irritates the heart and it 
becomes weak and fluttering. This is often called 
palpitation. The sympathy between the heart 
and stomach are close, because the same nerve 
supplies both organs. A diseased stomach and a 
weak heart cause a feeble circulation; a feeble 
circulation lessens the lung-power, breathing is 
interfered with, less oxygen is taken into the sys- 
tem, the red corpuscles (the oxygen-carriers) 
become pale and lose their vitalizing influence, 
less carbonic acid gas is exhaled, the lung-tissue 
loses its vitality and elasticity from a lack of 
nourishment, congestion of the lungs follows, 
producing an unhealthy exudate in the air tubes, 
followed by more or less cough and expectora- 
tion. This is bronchitis. 

With a feeble circulation the skin becomes in- 
active and fails to eliminate. The dense network 
of vessels which lie just beneath the skin are con- 
gested and the circulation sluggish, the glands in 
the skin become filled with decomposing matter 
and inflammation and excessive secretion results 
as in eczema, dandrufif, and other forms of skin 
disease. These conditions do not respond readily 
to treatment ; thus proving that the cause is sys- 



76 DISEASE. 

temic. Boils and carbuncles are produced in the 
same way. 

Chronic congestion with partial loss of nerve- 
control may result in rapid proliferation of mor- 
bid or diseased tissue and produce cancer. 

TUMOR. 

The bacteriologists would have us believe 

That cancer is caused by germs. 

They tell us that the cancer-bug feeds on human 

flesh, 
The schizomycetes on the liver ; 
While the actinomycosis and the lockjaw forces 
Send their victims o'er the river. 
• Cancers are sometimes simply termed tumors. 
A tumor is any overgrowth, or abnormal develop- 
ment. Inflammatory swellings are sometimes 
called tumors. Tumors are deviations, both in 
size and shape, from the normal tissues in which 
they are found. Tumors usually possess an in- 
herent tendency of growth ; their growth is in- 
dependent, continuing when the rest of the body 
is only being maintained in its normal type, or 
while the tumor is growing the body may lose in 
weight. Those tumors which end fatally are 
called malignant ; those which are not destructive 
to life being called benign. 

One of the leading characters of a malignant 
tumor is a tendency to degenerate and destroy 
the ultimate elements of the tissue in which it 
occurs. Generally speaking, a tumor may be 



considered c; -ti- 

trates or invaacis aunuunair% aooue, w'hen it in- 
vades the connecting lymphatic glands, when it 
is attended by stinging or darting pains, or by 
obstinate and slowly extending ulcerations, when 
occurring in a person having impaired health, and 
not traceable to any known cause. People who 
brood in secret over the suspicion of a cancer 
subject the system to lowering tendencies, which 
render them more liable to other diseases. A 
cancer grows from a division of its own cells, and 
without any support from the cells constituting 
the surrounding tissue. 

Tumors are subject to disease the same as 
healthy tissue. Aside from transmission from 
the blood-stream and lymphatics, malignant 
growths may be carried down the trachea, and 
through the ureters. The more purely cellular 
the tumor, the more malignant the growth. Neu- 
romas, or nerve-tumors, are rare, affect only the 
motor nerves, and are harmless except from pres- 
sure or mechanical interference. Malignant tu- 
mors are called carcinoma, sarcoma, and epithe- 
lioma. Carcinoma has a frame work of con- 
nective tissue the same as other structures and 
organs, and the intervening spaces are filled with 
epithelial cells. Epithelium is the name given to 
the cells which cover the surface of the body and 
all mucous membrane. When the connective tis- 
sue framework is thick and the spaces are filled 
with large cells, the cancer is hard and fibrous. 




o^-. lount of con- 

nective tissue iidixiework, witn a corresponding 
increase in the epithelial cells which constitute 
the growth, giving it a soft appearance, resem- 
bling the physical character of brain-matter, 
hence they are called encephaloid, meaning brain- 
like. 

Sometimes hard carcinomas, which grow from 
the skin and mucous membrane, are called epi- 
theliomas. They occur on the lip, nose, tongue, 
stomach, etc., so called because of their being lo- 
cated on the surface. Carcinomas are formed in 
the lymphatic tissue. The spaces between the 
fibers which form the framework are merely di- 
lated lymph spaces, and these spaces are more or 
less filled with epithelial cells. The blood-vessels 
are situated in the connective tissue framework, 
therefore do not communicate directly with the 
cells, which lie loose within the spaces, and which 
constitute the growth. If carcinoma should cause 
destruction of the connective tissue framework 
sufficient to reach the blood-vessels, more or less 
hemorrhage would result and it would then 
spread by the blood-stream as well as by the lym- 
phatics. As carcinoma or cancer is always de- 
rived from epithelial cells, it may occur primarily 
wherever these cells are found. These cells cover 
the mucous membrane of the digestive tract, that 
lining the air-tubes of the lungs ; they cover the 
serous membranes lining all closed cavities, as the 
abdominal, chest cavity, etc., all glands and their 



DISEASE. 79 

ducts. When cancer is found in other tissues it 
is secondary, having been carried by the circu- 
lation or lymphatics. Those forms of cancer 
called Sarcomas, like carcinomas, are given many 
names. They are composed of embryonic or new- 
ly formed connective tissue cells. Connective tis- 
sue forms a framework for all the structures of 
the body. When resulting from inflammation, 
the new cells are first small and round, next they 
elongate into oval or spindle cells, then become 
hard and fibrous. In sarcoma these cells may un- 
dergo no higher change but remain round, or they 
may become oval, spindle-shape or fibrous ;. hence 
there are round-cell sarcoma, oval-cell sarcoma, 
and spindle-cell sarcoma. When there is general 
fibrillation with loss o>f many cells, as in degen- 
eration, they are called myxoma, or myeloid sar- 
coma, from their resemblance to bone-marrow. 
Sometimes the framework contains black pigment 
or coloring matter; these are called melano-sar- 
coma. 

Combinations of these and other names are 
used. Chrondroma means a tumor springing 
from cartilage; osteoma, one springing from 
bone ; myoma, springing from muscle ; neuroma, 
nerve-tumor. Myxoma (mucus) or myxosar- 
coma, is so called when degenerative changes 
have produced a gelatinous substance resembling 
mucus. 

Lipoma is one containing much fat. 

Sarcomas are composed of embryonic or newly 



80 DISEASE. 

formed connective tissue cells, and may occur 
wherever there is connective tissue. They may 
arise at any age, but are most common in early 
life, while carcinomas seldom occur before forty 
years of age. In carcinoma the blood-vessels are 
situated in the connective tissue framework, in 
sarcoma they open directly into the growth, and 
jn their passage through the tumor the vessel 
walls are formed by sarcomatous cells ; therefore 
the cells may easily fall into the current and be 
washed away by the circulation. The veins may 
carry some of these cells to the heart, and as 
the blood is sent through the lungs the malignant 
cells may lodge in the capillarv network of vessels 
and produce secondary sarcoma. Emboli, or 
blood-clots, may now be carried back to the left 
side of the hear): and sent through the general cir- 
culation, and may lodge in the brain, liver, kid- 
neys, bone, etc., and produce secondary sarcoma. 
Sarcomas usually grow more rapidly than car- 
cinomas by reason of their more direct blood- 
supply : and when removed they are more likely 
to recur, because, as just explained, the malig- 
nant cells are more liable to be distributed 
through the system and may develop at any 
point. 

Eating cancer, or rodent ulcer, always occurs 
on the face and springs from a sweat-gland, seba- 
ceous gland, or hair-follicle. 

Birth-marks are sometimes called angioma, 
meaning blood-tumor. They are caused by di- 



DISEASE. 81 

latation of the blood-vessels which lie just be- 
neath the surface. 

These different varieties differ only in the size 
and shape of the cells of which they are formed, 
and the part of the body in which they are lo- 
cated. Really it is a distinction without a differ- 
ence, for unless successfully removed all, except 
birth-marks, are destructive to life. 

Benign tumors, or those not destructive to life, 
are common connective tissue overgrowths. Usu- 
ally their only danger is their mechanical inter- 
ference with the surrounding structures. How- 
ever, they may rotate at the point where they are 
attached (pedicle), and this may cause pressure 
and check the return circulation. The veins 
would become congested, rupture, and be fol- 
lowed by hemorrhage. Inflammation and suppur- 
ation may follow, or inflammatory adhesions 
might occur, the tumor becoming attached to the 
surrounding structures. This might cause per- 
foration into the digestive tract, and be followed 
by death. 

Their pressure may cause inflammation of the 
kidneys, constipation, spasms ott* paralysis by 
pressure upon nerve-fibers, or may cause enlarge- 
ment of the heart, and be followed by degenera- 
tive changes, etc. None of these conditions often 
occur, yet they should be considered of sufficient 
importance for the removal of benign tumors. 
Medical writers have never given the cause of 
tumors, or the causes from different investigators 



82 DISEASE. 

are but different theories, varying in probability 
and ingenuity. 

CANCER. 

A prominent medical writer said recently: 
"The theory of germ-causation, never generally 
accepted, has been almost entirely abandoned. 
The view most generally entertained at this time 
is that cancer is the result of rapid growth of the 
cells of the basement membrane, due to septic 
blood." Basement membrane is a thin layer of 
flattened, almost indistinguishable cells, just be- 
neath the surface of the mucous membrane. It 
also forms one of the layers of the skin, and dips 
down into the little glands of the skin, stomach, 
etc. 

"Cancer is most apt to occur in an organ where 
septic blood has produced chronic congestion or 
inflammation, and nerve-control has become par- 
tially lost through gradual progressive paraly- 
sis. In other words it is a degenerative change. 
The nutrition and function of the organ involved 
have escaped the control of the nerves, and the 
cells of the part multiply energetically and law- 
lessly, according to their nature. Rapid multi- 
plication of tissue-cells always means a diminu- 
tion of vitality in each individual cell. 

"In health the nerve-supply imposes cell-func- 
tion, retards decay and death ; but with this in- 
fluence impaired or removed by paralysis, the 
tissue-cells know no higher law than their own 



DISEASE. 83 

inherent tendencies, and with the abundance of 
blood and lymph furnished by the engorged organ 
the diseased cells multiply and reproduce their 
kind with the greatest luxuriance and abandon- 
ment. The most immature and imperfect formed 
cells — those of the surface — are constantly dying 
and breaking down, furnishing the phenomena of 
ulceration and hemorrhage." This corresponds 
exactly with the condition which exists during 
dyspepsia; lack of elimination, lack of nourish- 
ment, and the degenerating tendencies which al- 
ways follow. 

RHEUMATISM. 

Rheumatism is not a disease but a symptom 
a symptom of a di nerated in the system. 

The term muscular rheumatism is no1 correct. 
Strictly speaking it is neuralgia and neuralgia is 
but natun calling attention to our errors. 

If the reader could examine the affected muscle 
under the microscope, the fibres of which the 
muscle is formed would be found in a natural 
condition. There would be no inflammation or 
other evidence of disease; demonstrating clearly 
that the trouble was confined to the nerve-fibres 
and not in the muscle. The pain may be incn 
by exposure, insufficient food, improper cloth- 
ing, etc. Hard work also increases the irrita- 
4 ion, hence those muscles doing the most work 
are most affected, as those of the back, shoulders, 
wrist or other joints 



84 DISEASE. 

Rheumatism may be acute or chronic, may af- 
fect muscles, joints or other structures. Rheu- 
matism of a joint differs from muscular rheuma- 
tism. Every joint is enclosed in a thin membrane 
in the form of a short, wide tube. The membrane 
is attached at either end to the margin of the 
articular surfaces of the bones forming the joint. 
This membrane encloses the various ligaments, 
which support the joint. This membrane fur- 
nishes the secretions or fluids, which lubricate the 
joint and prevent friction. In acute rheumatism 
of a joint the irritation causes an increased 
blood-supply, and there is swelling and redness 
in proportion to the increase in the circulation. 
The more vascular the part, the greater the swell- 
ing. The swelling causes pressure. and the pres- 
sure causes pain. Redness or discoloration is 
caused by the escape of the red blood-corpuscles 
into the surrounding tissue. With an increase in 
the blood-supply there is an increase in the tissue 
changes, hence an increase in the temperature 
because animal temperature depends upon tissue 
change. 

This gives what are called the four cardinal 
symptoms of inflammation, swelling, redness, 
heat and pain. Pain is not always present. For 
instance there may be little or no pain in chronic 
inflammation of the liver. There may be no pain 
in inflammation of the solitary glands, called 
Peyer's glands, in typhoid fever. 

Chronic rheumatism of joints does not usually 



DISEASE. 85 

follow the acute, but arises insidiously in people 
who have suffered from exposure, improper food, 
overwork and other hardships. In chronic rheu- 
matism of joints the cartilage covering the artic- 
ulating or adjoining ends of bone may become 
eroded (destroyed). The exposed bone becomes 
irregularly thickened, the capsule or membrane 
covering the joint, and the ligaments which sup- 
port it, may become fibrous and contract. The 
prolonged irritation has here caused a slow form 
of inflammation, and the same changes take place 
as elsewhere. There is an increase in the con- 
nective tissue framework; later this contracts, 
deforms the joint and limits mobility. The con- 
tracting fibres cause pressure, aiding in the de- 
struction of . cartilage, ligaments and other 'nor- 
mal tissues. Sometimes during these degenera- 
tive changes the ligament which supports the 
joint softens, allowing certain muscles which are 
attached near the joint to contract, thus causing 
deformity. Sometimes the tendons and liga- 
ments about the joint become filled with lime 
salts, of which bone is formed. This results in 
a stiff joint. Pus does not form. 

The best treatment for chronic rheumatism is 
hot air. A temperature from three hundred to 
five hundred degrees may be applied. Hot air 
dilates the small vessels, brings the blood to the 
surface where it is applied, and thus relieves the 
congestion or inflammation beneath. It causes 
the blood to flow through the part. This relieves 



SQ DISEASE, 

the pressure and stops the pain, adhesions and 
accumulations are broken down and removed, 
thus preventing stiff joints. There is active dis- 
charge through the skin, and this removal of 
waste relieves the irritated nerves. The improve- 
ment in the circulation stimulates natural activ- 
ity, nutrition is increased, the heart is strength- 
ened, a clouded brain is relieved, the torpidity is 
overcome. 

Massage is also of benefit. Massage stimu- 
lates the circulation with the same results as hot 
air, though it is much more limited in its effect. 

Electricity, applied by the interrupted or Far- 
adic current, is only a means of massage. The 
advantage from the interrupted current comes 
from the fine, vibratory, massage-like effect; in 
other words, from the mechanical effect and not 
from the electricity. 

The remedies to be used are laxative and anti- 
septic. Digestion must be improved. Hot air or 
drug-medication will be more effectual if admin- 
istered by one skilled in their application ; but 
what any and every one can do is to guard against 
all forms of excess, keep the eliminative organs 
active, and they will not be troubled with rheu- 
matism. Every thinking mind will admit that 
rheumatism is generated from waste products 
which are retained within the system. Active 
elimination will prevent this, and prevention will 
relieve the necessity of treatment. 

Following dyspepsia there is first congestion, 



DISEASE. 87 

and if continued this results in a low form of in- 
flammation as described. Any part or organ of- 
fering the least resistance will be most affected, 
and when the inflammation reaches a certain 
point there will be cell-proliferation or increase 
of tissue, resulting from the increased blood- 
supply. 

The new tissue is a form of connective tissue 
which nature designed as a framework for all 
the structures of the body, described elsewhere, 
but when resulting from inflammation it invaria- 
bly contracts. First the original cells enlarge, 
then divide and redivide, beginning in the form 
of small round cells. These first elongate and 
are called spindle cells, then fibre cells, and when 
the limit of their growth is reached they con- 
tract. Hence all increase in connective tissue re- 
sulting from inflammation is pathological or dis- 
eased. Gradually the natural tissue is replaced 
by the new. This new tissue takes no part in the 
work carried on by any of the various organs, 
but crowds out more or less the original, and 
the organ or part is weakened in proportion. 
Healthy tissue is caught in the contracting fibres 
and destroyed. Many small blood-vessels are ob- 
literated. If in the stomach, the part supplied by 
such a vessel may die from lack of nourishment, 
degeneration follows, which may result in ulcer, 
as mentioned. Many glands of the stomach are 
destroyed, as described under alcohol. 

Every scar is an example of this kind of tissue. 



88 DISEASE. 

The scar looks light in color in proportion to the 
number of blood-vessels destroyed. If on the 
scalp the contracting fibres, besides obliterating 
blood-vessels, will destroy some of the hair-folli- 
cles and leave a bare spot. A scar is large or small 
according to whether the edges of the wound were 
brought smoothly together or allowed to gape, 
leaving a space to be filled in with what is called 
granulation tissue (connective tissue). 

The amount of this newly-formed tissue is in 
proportion to the amount of inflammation and 
septic or poisonous matter contained in the blood. 
Perhaps a burn gives the best illustration of the 
contraction of connective tissue resulting from 
inflammation, because there is more of it ; in this 
case the tissue destroyed by the burn — dead tis- 
sue — is in contact with the healthy, and as the 
dead tissue is being decomposed and removed its 
morbid influence comes in direct contact with the 
living. This is the battle line between the living 
and the dead, hence inflammation is more intense, 
and there results more connective tissue over- 
growth. As a result of burns many people have 
seen the hands or face drawn out of all resem- 
blance to a human being. 

PARALYSIS. 

Paralysis is due to inflammation and connective 
tissue overgrowth, produced by septic blood. The 
inflammation affects the spinal cord, or the cord 
and brain. The changes are caused by irritation 



DISEASE. 89 

and a loss of nutrition. The irritation paralyzes 
more or less the nerves controlling the blood-ves- 
sels supplying the cord and brain, and the vessels 
dilate. Too much blood is the result and there 
follows a low form of inflammation and connect- 
ive tissue overgrowth, as described. There is a 
corresponding destruction of nerve-fibres and 
nerve-cells in the cord and brain. The contrac- 
tion of the newly formed tissue squeezes the 
nerve-structures, shutting off their circulation, 
causing pressure and aiding in their destruction. 
The nerve-fibres are found in different stages of 
degeneration. The semi-independent nerve-cen- 
ters formed by the aggregation of the ganglionic 
or larger nerve-cells in the cord degenerate and 
disappear more or less completely. With the de- 
struction of the natural tissue and the contrac- 
tion of the connective tissue overgrowth, the 
spinal cord becomes hard and fibrous. 

According to the newer teaching the nerve- 
tissue is destroyed first, and is followed by con- 
nective tissue overgrowth. It is impossible for 
this to be true beyond a limited extent, for the 
first nerve-cell that died would excite inflamma- 
tion around it, and this would cause an increase 
in the connective tissue, and the contraction of 
this would destroy other nerve-structures, oblit- 
erate small arteries, and thus aid in degenerative 
changes. The question is of small importance, 
however, for back of all is a lack of nourishment 
caused by indigestion. Exposure, overexertion 



9<j DISEASE. 

or injury may also be responsible for some cases 
of spinal disease. 

Practically all forms of paralysis are the same. 
They consist of increased blood-supply, the re- 
sult of inflammation, followed by degeneration of 
the nerves and nerve-cells, an overgrowth of con- 
nective tissue which contracts and hardens. 
Sometimes one part of the cord is affected, some- 
times another. The changes are the same as 
those of the stomach, liver and kidneys, described 
under alcohol. 

A nerve is no more or less than a long drawn 
out process of a nerve-cell. Certain cells in the 
brain and spinal cord send out these prolonga- 
tions, and thus the nervous system is formed. 

The nerves of sensation arise in the back part 
of the cord, hence inflammation of this part is 
first indicated by increased sensibility, which may 
be in the form of pain, numbness, or tingling sen- 
sations. Later there is loss of sensation, showing 
that the destruction is more complete. 

The nerves of motion arise in the front part 
of the cord, hence inflammation of this part, act- 
ing as a stimulant, is first indicated by increased 
muscular action. This is followed by loss of mo- 
tion and shrinking of the muscles, showing de- 
struction and degeneration of this system. 

The voluntary muscles of the body and extrem- 
ities are supplied with nerves from the spinal 
cord. Many of the nerves arising in the brain ex- 
tend downward, connect with the spinal nerves 



DISEASE. 91 

and modify or control their action; but during 
inflammation messages cannot be transmitted 
through the diseased area in the cord, and this 
leaves that portion and all below it without a 
brake, and the spinal nerves having escaped the 
control of the mind, set up a spasmodic action 
due to the inflammation. 

At first the inflammation acts as a stimulant and 
the nerves respond by involuntary movements. 
The patient cannot control his actions because of 
the constant excitement kept up in the cord. 

In the second stage of that form of paralysis 
known as locomotor ataxia, the feet and lower 
limbs escape the control of the patient and fly in 
all directions. Later the hands and arms may 
suffer in the same way. With the destruction of 
the nerves, all motion is lost and paralysis is com- 
plete. 

Paralysis of the lower limbs alone indicates in- 
vasion of the lower part of the spinal cord, be- 
cause the nerves governing them arise in the 
lower part. Paralysis of the hands and arms 
indicates invasion of the cord or that portion sit- 
uated in the neck, because the nerves governing 
them arise there. 

Chronic progressive bulbar paralysis, i. e., pa- 
ralysis of the muscles of the throat, tongue, lips, 
etc., is caused by connective tissue overgrowth 
at the base of the brain, where the nerves supply- 
ing these muscles take origin. The nerves them- 
selves are first hardened by inflammatory proc- 



<)2 DISEASE. 

esses, and later degenerate. These changes take 
place gradually; so do these forms of paralysis. 
At first a few cells are affected, the number in- 
creases until nutrition and function of the part 
escape nerve-control, when the change takes place 
more rapidly. 

A blood-clot may plug an artery supplying a 
group of nerve-cells in the cord and cause sud- 
den or acute paralysis. 

No attempt has been made to give a detailed 
account of the changes which take place. The 
object is to call attention to the fact that indi- 
gestion from any cause may result in any and 
all forms of paralysis. 

Sometimes inflammation of the spinal cord 
may follow chronic rheumatism and produce per- 
manent muscular contraction, with great deform- 
ity of joints. 

These changes in the cord are responsible for 
all forms of parailysis, and may be caused by the 
irritation produced by alcohol, tobacco, over-eat- 
ing, retained waste, etc., as already mentioned. 
Drinking hard cider will do the same thing. Hard 
cider contains not only alcohol but many acids 
which will produce inflammation and chronic 
catarrh of the stomach, and this means indiges- 
tion and disease. 

Volumes are written upon paralysis and nerv- 
ous diseases, volumes that would puzzle the an- 
gels and drive the devil crazy, yet the subject is 
not so difficult to understand. Long-continued 



DISEASE. 93 

irritation in any part of the body will sooner or 
later produce its evil effects by interfering with 
the central nervous system, the brain and spinal 
cord. Headache is characteristic of this irrita- 
tion ; so are neuralgia and rheumatism. These 
are nature's language forcibly expressed, telling 
us of the poison in the body and demanding its 
removal. 

If we continue, we expose ourselves to all 
kinds of aches and pains, to morbid growths, to 
all forms of nervousness, to paralysis, etc. 

If these statements are true they clear up the 
causes of many spinal and nervous diseases that 
have never been accounted for. Yet some people 
are not satisfied v .ih a plain, simple statement 
of facts, but prefer to build upon theory, some- 
thing of a sensational nature. But even theory 
has never given a cause for epilepsy. 

EPILEPSY. 

Epilepsy seems to have been born without a 
father ; and like Topsy it never had a mother, yet 
disorders of digestion, depression of spirits, loss 
of vigor, a feeling of languor, an unhealthy sys- 
tem, and a clouded brain, are common in epilep- 
tics, thus giving evidence of a lack of nourish- 
ment. This robs the blood of its natural ele- 
ments. It has been stated that the higher forms 
of digestion are carried on in the circulation ; for 
instance, oxidation aids bodily combustion by 
burning certain elements in the blood, i. e, ,by 



94 DISEASE. 

uniting with them and producing what are called 
end-products, so-called because such products un- 
dergo no further change, but are eliminated. 

To illustrate : As a result of the tissue-change 
going on in the body uric acid is produced. By 
oxidation this is converted into urea and elimi- 
nated by the kidneys, but with septic blood oxida- 
tion is incomplete and urea is not formed, the 
change stops one step short, and the uric acid 
remains as an irritating substance carried through 
the circulation. This results in inflammation and 
degenerative changes in all the tissues of the 
body. The uric acid and other irritating sub- 
stances produce a chemical change in the gray 
matter (cells) of the brain. First this change 
occurs in the blood, then in the tissues, including 
the brain and cord as already mentioned. 

If continued, there are later direct molecular 
or structural changes. This accounts for insan- 
ity as well as epilepsy, for during insanity the 
chemistry of the brain is altered, the composition 
of the brain-matter is not natural. It cannot be 
otherwise, impure blood never did and never will 
produce healthy natural tissue. 

One-fifth of all the blood in the body goes to 
nourish the brain, hence the brain receives five 
times as much blood as any other organ of its 
size ; and it must follow that any habit or indul- 
gence which impairs digestion, and gives un- 
healthy blood, must produce a special morbid in- 
fluence upon the brain and nervous system. Hence 



DISEASE. 95 

the enormous production of nervous debility, mo- 
nomania (insane on one subject,) hypochondria 
(depression of mind,) insanity, idiocy, and many 
minor ailments such as rheumatism, neuralgia, 
headache, mental stupor, lack of resolution, etc. 
Indigestion and retained waste irritate the nerv- 
ous system and produce the different mental, 
nervous and emotional states known as hysteria, 
nervousness, melancholia and other depressions 
and hallucinations. This is the foundation upon 
which epilepsy stands. 

Dynamite may be struck once, or a thousand 
times, if the blows are light enough, but sooner 
or later it will explode ; and the irritation pro- 
duced by dyspepsia may be stored up for a time, 
but sooner or later it too will explode. It will 
accumulate in the central nervous system, the 
brain and spinal cord, until they are surcharged ; 
and now at the first opportunity it breaks forth, 
and its power for the time is irresistible, as in an 
epileptic fit. 

Eye specialists claim that continued irritation, 
caused by constant strain of some of the muscles 
of the eye, has produced epilepsy in school chil- 
dren, and that the correction of the trouble with 
glasses has resulted in a permanent cure. 

The correction removed the irritation. 

Those who have studied the question of epi- 
lepsy believe that with attention to diet and elim- 
ination a cure may be effected, while we all know 
that drug-medication is useless. Operations are 



96 DISEASE. 

also useless. All the forms have been tried. 

If injury should drive a sliver of bone into the 
skull, or cause other brain-pressure, an operation 
might relieve and effect a cure. Epilepsy is sel- 
dom caused by injury. 

During an attack of epilepsy the patient foams 
at the mouth because he is unable to swallow. The 
same is true during an attack of hydrophobia. 

Many will be unwilling to believe indigestion 
the cause of so many ailments, as they may never 
have had any pain or other evidence referable to 
the digestive organs ; yet pain and other evidences 
of dyspepsia are 'not a)lways referred to the seat 
of trouble, but may be flashed over a nerve-trunk 
and appear at some distant point. There may be 
burning, itching, a creeping or crawling sensa- 
tion in different parts of the body, there may be 
lightning pains, neuralgia, rheumatism, headache, 
dizziness, spasms, hysteria, bad taste in the 
mouth, jaundice, coated tongue, foul breath, and 
many other manifestations, all the result of dys- 
pepsia, accumulated poisons in the system, bad 
air, lack of exercise, etc. 

Why so many indications from the same cause ? 

Because of our several powers to resist. A 
diseased stomach often causes pain in the lungs. 
That is because the same nerve supplies both 
organs. This nerve is also connected with that 
part of the brain which controls coughing, hence 
the irritation may produce cough. Many think 
this is evidence of consumption. This is the kind 



DISEASE. 97 

of consumption that patent-medicine fakes cure. 
After free elimination and the great benefit that 
always follows, it is no trouble to get the usual 
letter from the patient, who no doubt believes she 
has been snatched from the brink of the grave. 

Cerebro-spinal meningitis, or inflammation of 
the membrane covering the brain and cord, may 
be caused by septic blood and retained waste. 
This condition excites inflammation in the mem- 
branes mentioned, and disease follows. 

As stated, medical authors do not account for 
many diseases. They tell us they are due to the 
"preponderance of the nervous system in the bod- 
ily conformation," or "to hereditary neuropathic 
diathesis." We are told that "gelatinous children 
of albuminous parents," are especially liable to 
tubercular meningitis (consumption of the mem- 
brane covering the brain.) 

Take those diseases, the cause of which has 
never been given, and apply the following: 

First, indigestion from any cause. 

Second, an unhealthy condition of the digestive 
tract. 

Third, unhealthy blood. 

Fourth, a lack o>f nourishment which must re- 
sult. 

Fifth, the retained waste acting as an irritant 
and setting up a low form of inflammation (tem- 
perature may not be raised). 

Sixth, production of morbid or diseased tissue 



98 DISEASE. 

and destruction of the natural, with correspond- 
ing loss of organic function. 

Seventh, lowering of all the vital forces ; the 
powers of resistance being more or less dimin- 
ished. 

Eighth, contracting and hardening of the newly 
formed tissue, producing degenerative changes 
in all the organs of the body. 

The effect extends all the way from slight 
symptoms to more severe forms, and death. 

These conditions and changes actually occur, 
as every pathologist can testify. 

In all cases disease, any disease, is an indica- 
tion that the system lacks nourishment, that low- 
ering tendencies have been going on in the body, 
that waste and repair are not equal, that the nerv- 
ous system has gradually lost control. 

It would be unreasonable to say that disease 
is caused by an increase in power or strength of 
the individual. 

If disease is due to a lack of nourishment, this 
has been brought about by bad air, poor food, 
poor digestion resulting from rapid eating, eat- 
ing too much, from whisky or tobacco, from 
tight lacing, from lack of exercise, too much hard 
work, or other forms of excess. The greatest 
cause is constipation. 

Many finely written articles and much theoriz- 
ing have been indulged in, regarding the causes 
of constipation ; some claiming a lack of develop- 
ment in the thickness of the muscular walls of 



DISEASE. 99 

the digestive tract, imperfect nerve-supply, poor 
circulation ; in the kind of food taken, in path- 
ologic or diseased relations in the surrounding 
tissues or organs ; some arguing that the malady 
is congenital (existing from birth,) some that 
it is acquired ; some claiming that it is due 
to too much hard work, and some to not 
enough, etc. And all this time constipation reigns 
supreme, and every day plunges the individual 
lower in the scale of health. Constipation means 
the production of many poisons which permeate 
the system, with lowering tendencies, deadening 
sensibility, stupefying every fiber. The poisons 
formed in the digestive tract are absorbed, pro- 
ducing a chronic state of disease. 

The blood lacks the normal constituents and 
contains too much waste, the blood-corpuscles are 
not healthy, the circulation becomes sluggish, 
with a tendency to coagulation. These condi- 
tions are evidence that nature is demanding her 
rights. The individual has transgressed beyond 
the limit of safety, and now must pay the debt, 
principal and interest. 

After disease is established skillful treatment 
may be needed, yet every disease and condition of 
ailment will be benefited by a properly selected 
diet, proper elimination, and the avoidance of all 
excesses. 

Not all the skill of the medical profession has 
ever been able to treat the different forms of 
paralysis, epilepsy, consumption, etc., successfully 

LofC. 



100 DISEASE. 

with drug-medication alone; and sometimes dis- 
eases of lesser gravity, such as rheumatism, sci- 
atica, neuralgia, hysteria, etc., refuse to yield to 
it. This proves that the disease is systemic, and 
that general disinfection is needed, something to 
check the degenerative changes, and natural food 
to supply and rebuild the wasting tissues. 

Foods are derived from the three kingdoms, 
animal, mineral and vegetable. They are divided 
into nitrogenous, those containing the element 
nitrogen ; and the non-nitrogenous, or carbo- 
hydrates, those not containing nitrogen. 

The nitrogenous are classed under the follow- 
ing heads : 

Fibrin, from the animal kingdom (all muscle is 
chiefly fibrin) ; glutin, from the vegetable king- 
dom (this is a form of albumin existing in 
grain) ; caseine, from the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms (this is a form of albumin found in 
milk) ; albumin, from the animal and vegetable 
kingdoms. 

So closely do these principles agree in chemical 
composition and properties, that they are con- 
sidered as being a modification of one sub- 
stance, and are called proteids. Proteids are 
the most important of the animal and vegetable 
compounds, and none of the phenomena of life 
occur without their presence. 

The other class of food-stuffs, the non-nitrog- 
enous, differ more than do the proteids, yet 
they all have two important properties in com- 



DISEASE. 101 

mon, and contain two important substances in 
common, i. e., sugar and starch. Sugar is chiefly 
of vegetable origin, the animal varieties being 
honey and the sugar found in milk. Sugar and 
starch are vegetable products, and under favor- 
able circumstances unite readily with the oxygen 
in the blood and produce water, carbonic acid and 
heat. 

The three vital processes of life in both plants 
and animals are digestion, circulation and respi- 
ration. Both receive their nourishment from the 
air and soil. Chief among the substances are 
wheat, corn, rye, oats, barley, rice, etc. Collec- 
tively these are called cereals, and are said to 
contain , all the elements necessary to maintain 
human life. There is said to be no record that 
takes us back or beyond the cultivation of wheat. 
It has been found in the lake dwellings of the 
ancient Swiss, and many believe it has existed 
since man has existed. 

It is estimated that two-thirds of our food is 
starch. Uncooked starch is indigestible. Un- 
ripe fruit contains starch, hence the danger of 
eating it uncooked. The starch is converted into 
sugar during the process of the fruits' ripening. 
Some fruits contain sugar in considerable quan- 
tities, giving them a sweet taste. This is grape or 
starch sugar, and it is only one-half as sweet as 
cane or granulated sugar. 

Much has been- said and written concerning the 



102 DISEASE. 

food products — what we should and should not 
eat. But when it comes to the question of food -and 
drink, we are continually making mistakes.. As 
evidence, we have but to view the thousands of 
dyspeptics on every hand. 

Pepsin is the great remedy for dyspepsia, and 
every butcher shop, sausage factory, and all the 
great slaughter-houses throughout the country 
have found it profitable to go into the pepsin- 
manufacturing business. Never before were 
there such enormous quantities of pepsin manu- 
factured, and never before was there so much 
dyspepsia. Gradually we learn that we cannot 
purchase our digestion ready made. 

Statistics prove that dyspepsia is the primary 
cause of sickness in nearly one hundred per cent, 
of cases. Few escape the ravages of dyspepsia 
at some period of their existence. When the 
stomach begins to give trouble, artificial digest- 
ants are resorted to, and the great army of con- 
sumers turns first from one remedy to another, 
each one making the rounds independent of the 
others. In this way the different manufacturers 
of the "dope" are kept busy, and sharpers are 
making fortunes every year. The class of people 
who take this patent stuff are looking for a spe- 
cific, a something that will allow them to con- 
tinue their indulgences and excesses, at the same 
time paying little or no attention to the demands 
of nature. But sooner or later nature claims her 



DISEASE. 103 

rights, and for every transgression the individual 
must pay principal and interest. It may be in 
the form of an acute attack, a gradual and lin- 
gering disease, some of the many deformities 
from rheumatism, spinal disease, or an early 
death. 

Every one should learn that artificial digest- 
ants afford but temporary relief, that their effects 
are only palliative, i. e., they quiet the symptoms 
without touching the cause ; and that if continued 
these remedies will still further weaken the 
digestive organs. They do this by doing their 
work for them. It is well known that nature does 
not waste any of her forces, and that she does 
not perform any work in vain, and if artificial 
digestants are employed the natural digestive 
fluids and ferments will cease to flow. The 
muscles of an arm would atrophy (shrink) if the 
arm should be carried in a sling. A joint would 
refuse to act if it were kept for a long time in 
one position. When the arm and joint cease to 
act nature ceases to supply them. The same is 
true of the digestive fluids. If they are supplied 
artificially, the digestive organs will go out of 
business — atrophy — like the muscles of the arm 
carried in the sling, or refuse to act, like the joint 
that had remained too long inactive. 

The symptoms of dyspepsia are, flatulency (or 
wind on the stomach) with eructations, bad taste 
in the mouth, coated tongue, foul breath, sense of 



104 DISEASE. 

fullness, soreness, pain, or a feeling of weight in 
the stomach, a raw or burning feeling in the 
stomach or behind the chest bone, low spirits, 
evil forebodings, pressure over the stomach, 
drowsiness after meals, headache, palpitation of 
the heart, with flutterings, and at times a hesi- 
tancy in its action, nausea and perhaps vomiting, 
at times the appetite poor and again ferocious, 
after w T hich undigested food may lie in the 
stomach for hours or days. This may give the 
stomach control over the mental faculties, and 
the sufferer becomes irritable, may be unable* to 
sleep, or may be troubled with bad dreams. 
Many great men and high livers have suffered 
from dyspepsia. 

Where indigestion occurs in the digestive tract 
below the stomach, there is pain or soreness two 
or three hours after eating. If gas forms, there 
is a sense of fullness and bloating. If long-con- 
tinued the sufferer will become emaciated from 
lack of nourishment. 

The remedy for dyspepsia is largely in the 
hands of the sufferer, and can be expressed in one 
word — Diet. 

Eructations in which there is recognized by 
taste or smell anything eaten or drank, is evi- 
dence that the stomach cannot care for it. It is 
an indication that fermentation has occurred, and 
the flavor or odor of food is being thrown off, 
with the gases of decomposition. This may re- 



DISEASE. 105 

suit from improper food, more often from eating 
too much or too fast. If the eructations are 
greasy, avoid fats ; if they are sour, avoid sugar 
and starchy foods, as these produce acids which 
cause the sour taste. If there is a bitter taste in 
the mouth it is bile, and indicates congestion of 
the bile-ducts. 

The stomach does not rebel without -a cause, 
and its warnings should be heeded. When 
stomachal digestion is perfect we are unconscious 
we have a stomach. Every organ has its in-, 
dividual signs by which it makes known any ab- 
normal condition, and it is upon the recognition 
of such signs that diagnosis is made. Diet, fresh 
air, sunshine and proper exercise, will cure most 
cases of dyspepsia. "If muscular exercise could 
be bottled up and administered in tea or table- 
spoonful doses, while people were in bed or com- 
fortably seated in rocking-chairs, it would be 
more generally indulged in, and those preparing 
such treatment could command their millions. " 
Ball playing, Indian-club swinging, the use of 
light dumb-bells, the play ground with its sun- 
shine and pure air, or gliding over the dancing 
waters in boats, are better than medicines, tonics, 
bitters, pills, powders, patents, and poor whisky. 
Remember, the three great physicians of nature 
are fresh air, pure water, and sunshine. 

When the stomach is irritable through indiges- 
tion, the condition is reflected to the brain and 



106 DISEASE. 

other organs through the connecting nerve- 
fibres. This weaves a thread of disorder which 
may baffle human skill. This condition produces 
many imaginary ailments, the "blues," melan- 
choly, irritability, etc. These cases do not need 
medicine. It is as absurd to treat such cases with 
medicine as it would be to give medicine for 
lameness caused by a sliver driven into the hand, 
The stomach needs a rest and freedom from all 
irritating substances, just as much as the hand 
needs to have the sliver removed. Any quack 
can dose a dyspeptic with cathartic pills and 
whisky-bitters, but it takes a profound physiolo- 
gist and a good cook to prepare food for a dis- 
eased stomach. 

All starchy foods should be cooked for a much 
longer time than usual. We read that bread is 
the staff of life, but as stated, there is nothing 
said about dough. 

Many cases of dyspepsia can be cured by eat- 
ing slowly. It may be interesting to know that 
a glass of ice-water lowers the temperature of 
the stomach thirty degrees, and this has a power- 
ful effect in checking digestion, and in producing 
shock. 



ALCOHOL, 



Because of the popular opinion in favor of alco- 
hol, the author realizes that the following pages 
may bring forth many criticisms, and antagonize 
many opinions, yet the following statements are 
made after a careful study of alcohol and its ef- 
fects, and such statements are true. 

The author understands that the general public 
has been educated to believe alcohol is not only a 
stimulant and a remedy to be relied upon in emer- 
gency cases, but that it is a useful household 
remedy, and especially when "used as a medicine." 
Many people are sure that alcohol was a benefit 
in "such and such a case," others can recount 
one or more instances when alcohol saved life, 
while still a greater number merely suppose alco- 
hol of value. We should remember that regard- 
ing the use of alcohol, it is easy to make con- 
verts. Many are friendly because they like to 
drink it, others use it because popular opinion fa- 
vors it. 

Many people use alcohol to cure the "grip." 
The alcohol stimulates the animal nature, pro- 
duces a sense of semiunconsciousness, and this 
relieves present suffering and tides the man over 
his present trouble. With the disappearance of 
the disease, the consumer naturally declares in 
favor of alcohol. 



108 ALCOHOL. 

Did the alcohol really benefit the man? No; 
it deadened sensibility and thus gave temporary 
relief, in proportion to the amount taken, yet 
while the man did not realize his true condition, 
the disease did its work just the same, and now 
the patient must recover not only from the effects 
of the disease but from the alcohol also. Mor- 
phine would give the same relief, yet no one 
would consider morphine a benefit. The author 
does not wish to appear prejudiced or unreason- 
able; he admits that alcohol produces a sense of 
animal exhilaration, which some may be pleased 
to call a temporary stimulant, and in case of great 
prostration of bodily functions as in accident or 
shock (whatever that is), where nothing else was 
at hand, the author would use alcohol. 

Perhaps the greatest confidence in alcohol 
comes by way of the medical profession. Some 
physicians prescribe whisky, and in the minds 
of many, that settles it. The author has seen 
many a "drunk" as the result of the doctor's or- 
dering whisky ; of course the patient was the vic- 
tim here referred to. 

The author hopes there is not a single doctor 
who would disgrace himself by getting drunk. 

Prof. Chittenden, the well known physiologist 
of Yale, says that alcohol will increase the 
amount and the digestive power of the saliva and 
of the fluids of the stomach. The Professor says 
that the small amount of fusel oil found in whis- 
ky does not interfere with digestion.' That a 



ALCOHOL. 109 

wineglass of twenty per cent alcohol is equal to 
a wineglass of starch. It may be added that a 
wineglass of starch is equal to about half a loaf 
of bread. We are to infer from this that alcohol 
not only aids digestion, aids the consumer to eat 
more and digest better, but it is itself a food 
giving energy and strength to the system. The 
Professor has forgotten to tell us that these con- 
clusions were the results of experiments which 
were probably made upon dogs, and for a limit- 
ed time. Other experiments were made in little 
glass tube's called test tubes ; this part of the ex- 
periment probably taking place in some labora- 
tory. 

Another Professor, who is regarded as high 
authority, Prof. Atwater, of Wesleyan College, 
is said at this time to be conducting a number 
of experiments for the United States govern- 
ment, to determine the action of alcohol in the 
human system. According to published state- 
ments, he informs us that two and one-half 
ounces of alcohol, each day, will produce no evil 
effects. 

Two and one-half ounces of alcohol each day 
is equal to about one pint of whisky, or ten pints 
of beer, every three days. Prof. Atwater is 
quoted as saying that alcohol is oxidized in the 
system as completely as bread, meat, or any other 
kind of food; and that all the potential (real) 
energy of the alcohol is transformed into heat 
and muscular power. In other words, the body 



110 ALCOHOL. 

makes the same use of the energy of the alcohol 
as it does of sugar, starch, and all other ordi- 
nary food-products ; and weight and strength are 
maintained just as well with alcohol as with 
starch. It should be remembered that starch 
means bread, potatoes, rice, etc. 

The Professor explains that the body can easily 
dispose of such amounts as are taken by the mod- 
erate drinker. The Professor bases his opinion 
upon his experiments, where he has given small 
quantities of alcohol for a limited time, and those 
upon whom such experiments were made seemed 
to remain in a normal condition. 

He forgets that the action of alcohol is insidi- 
ous and slow, and cannot be understood or shown 
by such superficial experiments. Before giving 
the effects of alcohol upon the human system, let 
us contrast the opinions of Professors Chittenden 
and Atwater with the opinions of other men who 
are thoroughly acquainted from a practical stand- 
point with the effects of alcohol. 

The Outlook for August, 1899, contains the 
following: In his textbook on mental diseases, 
Dr. Bevan Lewis, of England, says of alcohol : 
"No poison except the virus of syphilis plays so 
extensive a role in the morbid affections and de- 
generations of tissue, nervous or non-nervous/' 

Dr, Lankester, Wm. Gall, Dr. Norman, Dr. 
Dods, and a long list of eminent English physi- 
cians, have expressed similar opinions. 

Among American physicians, of national and 



ALCOHOL. Ill 

international reputation, who have unhesitating- 
ly pronounced alcohol a poison, are Win. A. 
Hammond, N. S. Davis, Sr., and Austin Flint. 
The latter in his Practice of Medicine, said of 
certain classes of poisons : "The morbid effects 
are proportionate to the quantity received into 
the system. Certain poisons exert certain effects 
upon certain parts of the body, thus alcohol and 
opium exert their effects upon the brain. 1 ' 

In addition to the individual testimony just 
quoted, alcohol will be found classed as a poison 
by such medical dictionaries and standard refer- 
ence books as Quain's Dictionary of Medicine, 
Gould's Dictionary of Medicine and Allied Sci- 
ences, Taylor's Medical Jurisprudence, Allen's 
Commercial Organic Analysis, and Dunglison's 
Medical Dictionary. 

The Outlook for October, 1899, contains the 
following : 

A doctor of Paris, member of the French Acad- 
emy of Medicine, says : "The workmen, women, 
and* children absorb under all its forms a poison 
that filters through the body, which, under the 
action even of small doses daily repeated, breaks 
the strength, paralyzes the nervous system, an- 
nihilates little by little the intelligence, strikes 
the drinker with precocious senility, and makes 
in a few years, sometimes even in a few months, 
of an individual once robust, active, and a valu- 
able member of society, a being abject, degraded 
and infirm. This poison is alcohol. " 



112 ALCOHOL. 

At the International Medical Congress in Mos- 
cow, in 1897, Dr. Robert Koppe said: "The opin- 
ion of alcohol as a useful source of energy in the 
organism (and therefore a food) in consequence 
of its combustibility, is not scientifically justified. 
In consideration alone that a substance is oxid- 
ized in the body, in nowise justifies its use as an 
energy-furnishing food. Morphine, as is well 
known, burns in our bodies into oxide of mor- 
phine. Happily, however, it has not occurred 
to any one to proclaim it for this reason a proper 
source of energy (a food) for the human organ- 
ism, as is unfortunately done in the case of al- 
cohol." 

Much has been said and written as to whether 
alcohol is or is not a poison. The statements of 
those just quoted would not prove alcohol a poi- 
son, but would only prove their belief that it is a 
poison, unless there is something definite upon 
which these statements were made. There is, 
and that is the reason they were made. 

When taken into the system alcohol produces 
certain changes in the different organs and tis- 
sues of the body. Some may be pleased to call 
it a poison, others may not. That makes no dif- 
ference. The result is the same, and it is the 
result we wish to understand, and not someone's 
definition of a poison. Let us see what kind of 
a reputation alcohol has among the soldiers. The 
following evidence is furnished by the Reform 
Bureau, Washington, D. C. : Chaplain E. H. 



ALCOHOL. 113 

House, Fifth Massachusetts U. S. V., Camp 
Mead, Middletown, Pa., Sept. 22, 1898, wrote: 
"There is no doubt in my mind that the sale of 
intoxicating liquors has done more to contribute 
to sickness, death and trouble of camp life than 
all other things combined." 

"Headquarters 14th Regiment, P. V. I., Camp 
Mead, Middletown, Pa., Sept. 23, 1898. 
"There are many ways that a soldier can ruin 
himself, but I think the canteen is the most 
damnable of all. I have never allowed one in 
my regiment, and I never will/' 

W. J. Glenn, 
Colonel Commanding. 

"There is no doubt that the drink-habit works 
very great injury to the army. It has been shown 
over and over again that those who endure the 
greatest fatigue and exposure are men who do 
not drink." • 

Wm. B. Rochester. 
Brig. Gen., U. S. A. 
Washington, D. C. Retired. 

How insignificant Prof. Atwater's experiments 
look by the side of such crushing evidence. Let 
us see what kind of a record alcohol has in the 
nav}'. 

Rear Admiral Sampson, in a published inter- 
view, said : 

"I think that there is but one opinion among 



114 ALCOHOL. 

officers of the navy about- grog. And it is that 
alcoholic liquors have no place in the navy of 
the United States, except as medicine. Intoxi- 
cating liquors of all sorts should be abolished." 

"The man who needs the stimulus of alcoholic 
liquor to enable him to perform his duty is not 
to be trusted in any capacity. In my experience 
of nearly fifty years, as an officer in the United 
States Navy, I think I can say that ninety per 
cent of all punishments inflicted on board ship 
that have come under my observation, can be 
traced directly to rum." 

I. H. Gibbs, • 
Commodore, U. S. X. 
Alexandria, Va. 

A long list of others might be added, all giving 
the same evidence. 

The well known Dr. Wm. F. Crafts, in an ad- 
dress delivered in Octobear, 1899, said: 

"Every dollar spent for books, thirty-eight 
cents goes for labor." 

"Every dollar spent for hats and caps, thirty- 
seven cents goes for labor ; and so on through the 
list. 

"Every dollar spent for beer, only two cents 
goes for labor. 

"Every dollar spent for whisky, only one cent 
goes for labor. 

"This means, that if the money spent for drink 
was spent for the twenty chief comforts of life, 



ALCOHOL. 115 

one and one-third million more men would be em- 
ployed, and the farmers would get four hundred 
million more for raw material, etc." 

Most railway managers forbid their employes 
to drink while on-duty. 

The Chief of the Massachusetts Bureau of La- 
bor, in his twenty-sixth Annual Report, .by or- 
der of the State Legislature, as to the influence of 
intoxicating liquors in promoting crime and pau- 
perism, says that of the paupers in the state, 
sixty-five and one-fourth per cent w T ere known to 
be addicted to the use of intoxicating drinks ; and 
that eighty-two per cent of the criminals were 
"in liquor" at the time of committing the crime, 
and ninety-four per cent of criminals were ad- 
dicted to the use of liquor. Fifty-one per cent 
of the insane were addicted to drink. 

Dr. Crafts says twenty-five per cent of those 
aided by charity organizations and societies, out- 
side of poorhouses, owe their poverty to the per- 
sonal use of liquor; and thirty-seven per cent of 
those found in almshouses owe their condition 
to the personal use of liquor. 

Fifty-one per cent of the paupers go to the 
poorhouse by way of the saloon, and seventy-two 
per cent of crime in license states, and thirty- 
seven per cent in prohibition states, is due to 
drink. 

J. J. McCook, oi Hartford ; John Burns, labor 
leader in British Parliament; Charles Booth, 
chief authority of the poor in London; Chas. 



116 ALCOHOL. 

Doring Bace, who could speak with like author- 
ity for New York, and Edward Everett Hale, 
founder of more charitable societies than any 
other living man, all these tell us that alcohol 
is the chief cause of poverty. 

One hundred military officers, Lord Wolseley, 
Lord Roberts, Lord Kitchener, and ninety-seven 
American commanders, including every one that 
has ever spoken on the subject, with the notable 
and welcome exception of Egan, have condemned 
even beer." . 

The well known Dr. John M. Shaller, Professor 
of Physiology and Clinical Medicine in the Cin- 
cinnati College of Medicine, etc., etc., in part 
says in The Alkaloidal Clinic for March, 1901 : 

"In over twenty years' practice I cannot re- 
member a single case where I felt that the patient 
needed alcohol. 

"In cases of typhoid fever prolonged as they 
sometimes are for a number of weeks, the di- 
gested foods, particularly Peptonoids, Bovinine 
or any similarly prepared food, are of a great 
deal more value than alcohol possibly can be. 

"There is one very important feature which 
should prevent physicians from prescribing alco- 
holics, and this one reason alone is sufficient to 
prohibit its use entirely. I refer to the awful 
pathologic conditions that are daily observed in 
the post-mortem rooms. There is not an organ 
or tissue in the body that escapes its terrible rav- 



ALCOHOL, 11? 

ages. A remedy that is so productive of disease 
should not be used for the cure of disease. 

"The thought has found favor that in a sense 
alcohol is one of the physician's best friends. If 
you look at it from a business point of view, it 
certainly does make a great many patients for 
him, not only in the consumer himself, but in the 
children of the consumer. At least one-third of 
all idiots are a direct product of drinking parents. 
Fully twenty-five per cent of the insane are in- 
sane through heredity of drink, while many of 
them become so through drink. 

"A remedy must be an extremely dangerous 
one that can produce such awful results. A rem- 
edy that has such a fearful history back of it, 
whose victims fill the insane asylums, to say noth- 
ing of all of the criminals, seems to me to be a 
remedy that is best left alone. 

"That it is possible to practice medicine suc- 
cessfully without alcoholics can be verified by 
thousands of physicians in this country today. 

"Alcohol circulates in the blood as alcohol and 
in this diluted state it comes in direct contact with 
the tissues and inflames them. 

"There are many who cannot taste liquor with- 
out becoming heavy drinkers. This taste has fre- 
quently been started in the sick-room and under 
the advice of physicians. 

"When in a depressed state, exhausted mentally 
and physically, alcohol does brace and cheer one 



118 ALCOHOL. 

up, so does opium, so does cocaine, so does to- 
bacco or any other narcotic. 

"There are some remedies without which some 
physicians cannot practice medicine successfully. 
Alcohol is one of them. Some physicians would 
be utterly at sea if alcohol could be no longer ob- 
tained — for their patients, of course. 

"Alcohol produces more disorder, and makes 
more sickness, hereditary and acquired, than all 
other medicines or other substances voluntarily 
taken by the human being. It makes more in- 
sane, more idiots, more criminals, more sorrows 
and misery, than all other influences combined. 

"I repeat that in over twenty-two years of 
active practice I have very rarely used alcohol. 
I cannot recall a serious case in which alcohol 
could have possibly been of any assistance, nor 
can I recall a fatal one which alcohol could have 
saved. 

"In nearly every case where consultation was 
called, about the only change that was recom- 
mended was that brandy or whisky be given, and 
in none of these cases was there any benefit ob- 
tained." 

The following appeared in the Clinic of July, 
1899, and is from the pen of one of our leading 
physicians : 

"Our nation spends $1,200,000,000 every year 
for liquor! 

"Tariff revenue and silver products look small 
when compared with that appalling fact. The 



ALCOHOL. 119 

politicians are disputing about a tax of $5.00 per 
head, the cost per person of running the entire 
government of the United States, while it costs 
us for liquor alone $15.00 per person. The whole 
tax-bill, including federal, state, county and town 
taxes, is not equal to our liquor-tax bill. 

"What unspeakable poverty and misery this 
represents ! But viewed in its commercial as- 
pect merely, it is one of the most tremendous 
facts conceivable. It means that business obliga- 
tions are not met, rents are repudiated, mer- 
chants' bills are ignored, physicians' services un- 
paid, and a multitude of able-bodied men are ren- 
dered less capable of the best service. If we could 
only stop up this enormous leak by letting liquor 
alone the good times for which the nation sighs 
would dawn to-morrow." 

"If we as physicians could help to abolish this 
traffic we should be accessory to the greatest 
good that could, come to humanity and should 
have money to burn." 

The foregoing is given to prove the general 
sentiment of physicians and others, quite as capa- 
ble as Professors Atwater and Chittenden; and 
who have had far greater experience among those 
who use alcohol. Such evidence makes the ex- 
periments of the Professors look small and mean. 
It leaves nothing interesting or practical. 

The man who takes a drink of whisky feels a 
sense of animal, exhilaration. He believes he is 
stronger physically, but he is not. He believes 



120 ALCOHOL. 

he is more capable, can accomplish more, endure 
more, but he cannot. Physically and mentally 
the man is less capable. There is loss of bodily 
vigor and mental power. 

The solution of this is very simple. Every 
one understands that alcohol produces a loss of 
sensation, a paralyzing effect upon the system. 
This is proven by every man under the influence 
of liquor. Alcohol paralyzes the nerves, whose 
divided fibers supply the muscles, and by reason 
of this lowering tendency, the muscles are un- 
able to act up to their full capacity, hence they 
are weaker, the heart is weaker, respiration is 
weaker, circulation is weaker, the temperature 
is lower. 

In cold weather many people take alcohol to 
keep them warm, yet alcohol does not keep them 
warm, but it does just the opposite. It lowers 
bodily heat or temperature, and for the following 
reasons : It absorbs the water from the blood- 
corpuscles and they become shrunken. The red 
corpuscles, the oxygen-carriers, lose their power 
to absorb oxygen in their passage through the 
lungs, and this lessens tissue change, the muscles 
of respiration are weakened and less oxygen is 
taken into the lungs. This also lessens tissue 
change. Both these conditions aid in lowering 
temperature because bodily heat is maintained by 
tissue-change. The brain becomes clouded and 
dull, rendering all the tissues of the body less 



ALCOHOL. 121 

active. This also aids in lowering the tempera- 
ture. # 

True, the man may appear more active, and 
indulge in many idiotic notions, yet he lacks 
power just in proportion to the amount of alco- 
hol taken. 

Lying just beneath the skin is a dense network 
of vessels estimated to be capable of holding one- 
half of the blood in the body. Alcohol paralyzes 
the nerves governing the size of these vessels and 
they dilate ; this brings more blood to the surface, 
it is spread out and cooled in a wide sheet of 
superficial circulation, and then returns to ab- 
sorb more heat from the internal organs. This 
increase in superficial circulation increases the 
tissue-change and the temperature on the surface 
gives a false sense of warmth, but the internal 
organs are being continually robbed and the heat 
evaporates as soon as produced. By placing a 
thermometer under the tongue of any one under 
the influence of alcohol it may be proven that 
the temperature is lowered. With this false sense 
of warmth, a deluded brain and the nervous 
system benumbed by the paralyzing effects of al- 
cohol, many a man has gone out in winter to 
freeze to death. 

In some cases, and for a short time, small doses 
of alcohol may stimulate the flow of the digestive 
fluids of the stomach, and digestion may be im- 
proved. The alcohol reaching the circulation is 
partially oxidized, though not all, for ten per 



122 ALCOHOL. 

cent is eliminated by the lungs and kidneys. Yet 
any benefit derived is soon replaced by a condi- 
tion exactly the opposite; for the stomach be- 
comes unhealthy, the digestive fluids are changed, 
digestion is interfered with, and a general low- 
ering of the vital forces results. True, some can 
continue the use of alcohol longer than others 
and with less ill effect, but if continued the same 
result awaits all consumers. The continued use 
of alcohol, even in small quantities, institutes the 
fibrous changes which characterize the degener- 
ations of old age, and which are mentioned later. 
It consumes vitality, sometimes at a galloping 
pace. 

At the same time the brain is lulled into a state 
of semi-consciousness, and now fails to note the 
ravages going on in the body. The special senses 
are first perverted and then blunted. Intuition, 
or the perception of truth without conscious rea- 
soning, is lost, and judgment is rendered unre- 
liable. Alcohol destroys all that is worthiest, for 
which civilization has so long striven. 

It has been stated that alcohol absorbs water 
from the red blood-corpuscles; also from all the 
tissues of the body, and it coagulates the albumin 
in both blood and tissue, thus robbing the system 
of its natural elements. Alcohol does not "cook" 
the albumin, as claimed by some temperance lec- 
turers, who place in a glass a quantity of egg al- 
bumin, and then holding the glass up to view in- 
vite the attention of the audience while they pour 



ALCOHOL. 123 

in alcohol. Albumin is about eighty per cent 
water and twenty per cent solid matter. Be- 
tween the alcohol and the water there is a strong 
affinity, or power of attraction. This is one of 
nature's forces, and when the alcohol is added the 
water separates itself and unites with the alcohol, 
This leaves the solid portion of the albumin in 
a coagulated form. Any change in appearance is 
caused in this way. 

At first the alcohol increases the cerebral circu- 
lation, by dilating the arteries in the brain, the 
same as those on the surface of the body already 
described. The brain contains more blood, hence 
is more active, yet nerve-sensibility is depressed 
and blunted. 

This is true of both the motor and sympathetic 
nerve-systems, and is proved by a loss of control, 
showing the effects on the motor nerves ; while 
the flushed face, inflamed eyes and red nose prove 
its paralyzing effect upon the sympathetic nerves, 
whose branches control the size of the blood-ves- 
sels, but now that they are paralyzed by the ef- 
fects of the alcohol the vessels dilate, producing 
the flush. 

No one ever heard of a nose painted with 
water-colors. 

The odor of alcohol is plainly detected in the 
breath of the consumer, proving that the profes- 
sors were mistaken in saying that "all the alcohol 
is oxidized in the system/' 

"Alcohol is the most pernicious of all poisons. 



124 ALCOHOL. 

Its action is progressively and continually harm- 
ful and destructive. There is no such thing as 
temperance in the use of alcohol, whether whisky, 
beer or wine, and the daily consumption, large or 
small. The result is the same. The only differ- 
ence is the time required to burn out the constitu- 
tion. The sapping of the vital forces is going on 
all the time/' 

Alcohol is an excitant and a depressant. It 
destroys vitality by first arousing and then de- 
pressing sensation and emotion. Chloroform and 
ether do the same thing. Alcohol abuses and 
weakens the nervous system, thus causing a pre- 
disposition to disease, and aggravates disease 
after it has obtained a foothold. 

Pneumonia is notoriously fatal in drunkards. 

The well-known Steel's Physiology says, page 
146: "Mr. Huber, who saw in one town in Rus- 
sia 2160 persons perish with cholera in twenty 
days, said it was a most remarkable circumstance 
that persons given to drink have been swept away 
like flies. In Tiflis" (a Russian city) "with 
twenty thousand inhabitants, every drunkard has 
fallen — all are dead, not one remains. " 

Through the destructive action of alcohol up- 
on the nervous system it may cause hysteria, 
chorea or St. Vitus' dance, epilepsy, neuralgia, 
inflammation in any part of the body, cramps, 
convulsions, paralysis, melancholy, rheumatism, 
gout, Bright's disease, cancer, consumption, par- 



ALCOHOL. 125 

tial or complete insanity, delusions, hallucina- 
tions, delirium tremens and death. 

Tobacco and indigestion may do the same 
thing-. Alcohol irritates the mucous membranes 
throughout the system, and if continued this leads 
to chronic inflammation. In all cases the heart, 
lungs, liver and kidneys become permanently dis- 
eased sooner or later, and ultimately death is the 
result. 

The man who dallies with alcohol is most cer- 
tain to form a pernicious habit, which he may be 
powerless to break, and which slowly and insid- 
iously robs him of his reserve vitality. He may 
not see or feel the draft on his forces, because 
no emergency occurs to test his strength, but the 
drain is going on all the same. This gradual 
leakage, if invested in good habits and right liv- 
ing would add twenty-five years to his life, and 
enable the individual to hand down a constitu- 
tion untainted by vice or physical infirmities. 

Alcohol dwarfs a man, mentally, morally and 
physically. ,It is responsible for many crimes, 
vices and diseases. When the spree is over, the 
temporary oblivion of the cup must be paid for, 
in bodily suffering, in unfitness to discharge in- 
dividual responsibility, in a haunting sense of un- 
worthiness, in the disgrace and unhappiness of 
those depending upon the drunkard, in the dis- 
approval of society, and in the gradual loss of 
all that constitutes true manhood. 

Many of the medical profession have coun- 



126 ALCOHOL. 

tenanced the indiscriminate use of alcohol. They 
have prescribed it for their patients, and have 
looked on complacently while young and old have 
inflamed their passions, clouded their judgment 
and confused their moral sense, thus forging fet- 
ters of imperious habit to drag down and chain 
the forces of manhood. Physicians cannot dis- 
claim moral responsibility. Ignorance or care- 
lessness is no excuse before the law. 

Many physicians feed their patients whisky. 
Some give large quantities to small children. 
Such treatment is degrading and demoralizing 
to the practice of medicine. Many use it because 
of their ignorance, as they do not know what else 
to give. Others use it themselves, and naturally 
feed it to the sick. 

Many use it in "sinking spells," or when the 
"fever turns/' Fever is caused by poisons gen- 
erated in the body. These poisons so irritate the 
nervous system that it cannot properly control 
the tissue-changes, repair and waste ; and having 
escaped nerve-control this change, takes place 
more rapidly; hence the increase in temperature 
or fever. Fever is always caused in this way. 

As stated elsewhere, every chemical change 
produces a certain amount of heat. That is a 
universal law. The changes which are contin- 
ually taking place in the body are chemical 
changes, and they result in the formation of many 
new compounds ; and the heat thus produced 
maintains the natural temperature of the body. 



ALCOHOL. 127 

When the system is irritated by poisons from any 
cause the nerves become more or less paralyzed, 
lose control and the tissue-changes take place 
more rapidly, hence the fever, as stated. 

It is possible that when the poison is all elim- 
inated, the patient, freed from this irritant, may 
settle into a more quiet state, more quiet because 
more natural, but there is no danger of death. 
Is that true, or not; and why? True; because 
the patient, being relieved from the poison in the 
system and freed from the constant demands of 
a fever, is in a much better condition, and usually 
needs only to be let alone, with the exception of 
intelligent feeding. Disease, any disease, is 
caused by poisons in the system ; and it is good 
sense to believe that the danger is when the poi- 
sons are present and not after they have disap- 
peared. A man is mistaken when he says 
the "fever turned at twelve o'clock last 
night, and if we had not given the man whisky 
he would have died." If a stimulus was needed 
there are remedies quicker and more powerful 
and more lasting than whisky. The attitude of 
the physician who uses alcohol is responsible to 
some extent for the belief that alcohol is a tonic. 

When a man drinks alcohol he feels stronger. 
It has been stated that he is not stronger, but 
weaker. Is he stronger or not? Let us look at 
it in another way. If alcohol stimulates a man, 
and makes him stronger, as the friends of alcohol 
claim, then the man can walk better, his step will 



128 ALCOHOL. 

be firmer and his mind clearer. Is that true? 
No. Every one understands perfectly well that 
under the influence of alcohol restraint is thrown 
aside, self-control is lost, speech is at first bolder, 
later it becomes incoherent and words are jum- 
bled together. This is the efifect of alcohol upon 
the mind. Reason and judgment have been de- 
throned. 

What about the physical strength ? Is the man 
stronger? 

No. His trembling hands and unsteady gait, 
which later becomes staggering, are all the evi- 
dence needed to prove that alcohol weakens a 
man physically as well as mentally. 

Let us view it from another standpoint: The 
human body is composed of vast numbers of little 
particles of matter called cells. The temperature 
of the body is maintained by tissue-change, as 
stated, i. e., by elimination of waste and worn-out 
particles of matter, and their replacement with 
new. This requires of each and every cell a 
certain amount of work, which keeps it in good 
health. The change is sometimes called oxida- 
tion because from the air we breathe a certain 
amount of oxygen is absorbed, carried through 
the circulation, unites with certain elements and 
aids in producing the change, and the change 
produces heat. The friends of alcohol claim that 
when alcohol is taken into the system, it readily 
unites with the oxygen, produces heat and thus 
proportionately the tissues of the body are saved. 



ALCOHOL. 129 

Hence they claim alcohol is a fat producer. Is 
that true? 

Every organ and every cell in the body is con- 
stantly being stimulated by the removal of waste 
or worn-out matter, and replacing it with new. 
normal cell stimulation is a physiological or nat- 
ural action, as in the assimilation of food. But 
stimulation from alcohol or other poisonous mat- 
ter differs, as it gives no nourishment or support, 
hence there follow destructive changes and fat- 
ty degenerations, i. e., many cells of the kidneys, 
liver and other organs change to fat, and thus 
the organ is proportionately weakened. Every 
pathologist in the land can testify that this is 
the kind of fat which alcohol produces. The au- 
thor admits the truth of the claim that alcohol 
is a fat producer, but when we remember that 
the fat is formed at the expense of healthy tissue 
we find another reason why disease is more dan- 
gerous in drunkards, and why the man is less 
able to withstand physical strain. The cells 
which constitute the different organs and muscles 
of the body are not alone weakened, but the cells 
of which the nerve fibers are formed are also 
weakened and shattered. This is proven by the 
tremor of the drunkard. 

True, the user of alcohol may appear more 
fleshy and actually weigh more. Yet the flesh 
is unhealthy and lacks vitality because its nerve- 
supply has been interfered with, hence is easily 
overcome. The flesh produced by alcohol is a 



130 ALCOHOL. 

mushroom growth, and as unstable as the gourd 
which is said to have grown in a single night to 
shade the Hebrew prophet. 

A stimulant is something that excites or in- 
creases temporary action. 

A tonic is something that gradually yet per- 
manently restores a weakened body to its natural 
strength, something that will increase nutrition, 
build up and restore the old time vigor. 

The friends of alcohol do not claim it is a 
tonic, only a stimulant. Is alcohol a stimulant? 
Under the effects of alcohol the heart may act 
in an excited manner, and the whole nervous 
system may become agitated, but this does not 
mean an increase in strength. It means a loss 
of strength. Is alcohol a stimulant? The sphyg- 
mograph, an instrument which, if placed over 
the heart or an artery, will by means of a record- 
ing lever mark the rate and force of the action 
or character of the pulse. This test shows the 
heart to be weaker after the use of alcohol. The 
contractile power of the heart is lessened. Large 
doses not only show a decided weakening but 
demonstrate that the heart-cavities are distended, 
showing that the heart is able to contract but par- 
tially. 

All movements are produced by the action of 
cell-protoplasm. A muscle-cell will not contract 
unless stimulated by a nerve-fiber. Alcohol does 
not stimulate but paralyzes all nerve-fibers. The 
heart is composed of protoplasmic muscle-cells 



ALCOHOL. 131 

under the control of nerve-fibers. Alcohol para- 
lyzes these fibers and thus weakens the heart- 
action, the same as it weakens all other tissues 
and organs. It does this in proportion to the 
amount taken. It weakens the muscles of res- 
piration, which surround the chest. Every fiber 
of these muscles is weakened by alcohol, and 
respiration is correspondingly interfered with, as 
described. 

The friends of alcohol do not claim it to be a 
tonic, only a stimulant. If alcohol is a stimu- 
lant, chloroform is a stimulant. So is ether. 
Both chloroform and ether produce what doctors 
call a stage of excitement. 

If alcohol is a stimulant, it is not so powerful 
a stimulant as ether. Either alcohol, chloroform 
or ether first acts as an excitant, then a depress- 
ant 

Their secondary effects are narcotic, all pro- 
ducing sleep if taken in sufficient quantities. That 
is why alcoholics require more chloroform and 
ether to anesthetize them. The brain has be- 
come accustomed to the narcotic effect of alco- 
hol. This class of patients do not bear anes- 
thetics as well as others, because the alcohol has 
irritated, weakened and shattered the nervous 
system. There is no evidence that alcohol is a 
stimulant, and many people who use it as such 
do so without thought or inquiry. 

Again, there are drugs more powerful, more 



132 ALCOHOL. 

lasting and more certain, hence there is no ex- 
cuse for using alcohol. 

The following is a more detailed description 
of the effect of alcohol upon the -human system. 
The statements are not overdrawn, the object 
being to give the facts. All consumers do not 
suffer alike. It is said that some men can drink 
whisky during the whole of their natural life. 
If this is true such cases are rare, and for every 
one that occurs thousands go down under the 
influence of alcohol. In the following pages the 
full penalty is given. 

The first effect is upon the salivary glands of 
the mouth, but this is of such minor importance 
that it will only be mentioned. The alcohol is ab- 
sorbed direct from the stomach into the circula- 
tion. The veins of the stomach empty directly 
into the liver, and the alcohol is carried to that 
organ where it passes through the capillary net- 
work of vessels. The veins of the liver empty 
into the ascending vena cava, a large vein which 
empties into the right side of the heart. From 
here the blood is sent through the lungs and re- 
turned to the left side of the heart, and from 
there it is sent through the general circulation. 

Having traced the course taken by alcohol in 
the system, let us see what its effects are upon 
the different tissues and organs. The first effect 
of alcohol is upon the nervous system, and those 
nerves which control or govern the size of blood- 
vessels become paralyzed and the small vessels 



ALCOHOL. 133 

become relaxed and dilated. Hence all the or- 
gans are flooded with blood, which they do not 
need. This produces congestion, and if con- 
tinued results in a low form of inflammation. In 
health the blood exudes or passes out through 
the vessels and bathes the surrounding tissues 
and organs, supplying nourishment to all parts 
of the body. During the inflammation caused by 
alcohol this exudate is much greater. At first 
the nourishment is somewhat increased, though 
not in proportion to the exudate, because the 
alcohol acts as an irritant. The cells and organs 
receiving this increased blood-supply become 
larger, and as a result new cells begin to form. 
They develop by a division of the parent cells, 
and thus there is an increase in tissue. This 
new growth lacks quality, as alcohol is never a 
true tonic. The individual is bloated and the 
flesh is flabby. The effect is deceitful and super- 
ficial, and the alcohol steadily saps the vital forces 
and undermines the constitution. 

The new tissue mentioned is a form of con- 
nective tissue. It first appears in the form of 
small round cells. These elongate, and are called 
spindle cells. As the change continues they be- 
come more delicate, and histologists call them 
fiber cells. Having fully developed, they con- 
tract, becoming hard and fibrous. As naturally 
supplied, connective tissue acts as a framework 
for all the structures of the body. It develops 
with the growth of the individual, but when 



134 ALCOHOL. 

resulting from inflammation it invariably con- 
tracts, and this fact renders it pathological or 
diseased. As the contraction continues, the un- 
yielding pressure on surrounding tissues entan- 
gles all structures. Commencing with the stom- 
ach, where the first effects of alcohol are pro- 
duced. The mucous membrane is covered with 
little glands. These are thimble-shaped depres- 
sions and are lined with a layer of specialized 
cells, which collect from the passing blood- 
stream certain materials and transform them into 
the digestive ferments. These little glands are 
squeezed and pressed out of shape. Some are 
entirely obliterated, others are closed, the open- 
ings of others are narrowed or closed, and they 
become useless. Many glands that are not de- 
stroyed may have some of their secreting- cells 
destroyed. 

Blood-vessels are caught in the contracting 
fibers, and the circulation lessened or shut off, 
and the part supplied by such vessels atrophies 
(shrinks). Degeneration follows. As this change 
continues, the mucous membrane and deeper tis- 
sues of the 1 stomach continue to thicken and 
harden. The secretions are changed in quality 
and quantity, the digestive fluids are lessened, 
the delicate membrane of the stomach first be- 
comes thickened, and later, in places, the first 
layer of cells of this membrane, which are called 
epithelium, are piled up in polypoid growths, i. e., 
appear like little tumors, giving the surface an 



ALCOHOL. 135 

uneven appearance. In other places the mucous 
membrane may be replaced by new connective 
tissue. Where the change is complete the walls 
of the stomach are thinned, as much of the nat- 
ural tissue has been destroyed. 

The stomach may be dilated and may contain 
more or less fluid. It contains too much mucus, 
and chronic dyspepsia is the result. This is 
proven both by post mortem examinations, and 
by the morning vomiting of drunkards. There 
is no cure. 

The same change takes place in other parts ; 
first in the liver, because the alcohol is carried 
direct to that organ. It reaches the liver in the 
pure state. The changes in the liver are practi- 
cally the same as in the stomach, and the cause 
is the same — chronic inflammation. The liver is 
formed of many little lobules held together by 
connective tissue. This connective tissue frame- 
work penetrates all parts. Under the influence of 
alcohol-drinking there is first an overgrowth and 
then a shrinking of this framework. As stated, 
connective tissue resulting from inflammation al- 
ways shrinks. This is responsible for the grad- 
ual destruction o>f the organ, and the diseases 
which follow. 

During the early stages there is congestion and 
then inflammation, later there is increase in the 
connective tissue. -Together this causes enlarge- 
ment. The edges of the organ are rounded, 
smoothed and thickened. The cells may also be 



136 ALCOHOL. 

swollen and enlarged by fat, which may be de- 
posited in them at this time. With the increase 
of the connective tissue new blood-vessels form. 
These are derived from the artery that supplies 
the liver. If a cut surface of the liver could 
be examined at this time, the connective tissue 
overgrowth would be visible to the naked eye. 
The remaining lobules of which the liver is 
formed would so contrast with the new tissue as 
to present a granular appearance. 

Jaundice is usually slight, as the bile capillaries, 
or channels through which the bile flows, are in- 
terfered with but little. In health these capil- 
laries or channels have their origin between the 
cells that form the little lobules. Gradually 
these cells are obliterated and thus the bile cap- 
illaries or channels are made larger. A greater 
reason for the absence of jaundice is the de- 
struction of the cells that manufacture the bile, 
such destruction being the result of pressure from 
the new tissue growth, and later its contraction. 

The contracting fibers of the new tissues en- 
close within their meshes the more active cells, 
those of the little lobules. These maintain their 
individuality longer than other cells of the 
lobule, then disappear. There is an increase in 
connective tissue, not only between the lobules 
but between the cells that form the lobules. At 
first this change is most marked at the periphery 
of each lobule, later the center of the lobule is 
also invaded and replaced by connective tissue 



ALCOHOL. 137 

overgrowth. At first this change may cause a 
slight increase in the bile capillaries mentioned. 
Later they become fewer in number and larger, 
as stated. The contraction of the new tissue not 
only destroys the liver cells, but obliterates many 
small blood-vessels, and the digestive work which 
in health is carried on by the liver is interfered 
with, a lack of nutrition is the result, and gradu- 
ally the whole organ is decreased in size, such 
decrease being in proportion to the amount and 
contraction of the new tissue. This is called 
atrophy (wasting). The surface is shrunken ir- 
regularly, the edges are nodular; the hardening 
is most marked along the front edge because it 
is thinner, and more in the right than in the left 
lobe, because it is larger. 

The shrinkage of the liver prevents more or 
less the return of the blood that passes through 
it. This return circulation comes from the stom- 
ach, digestive tract, spleen, etc. ; and as the blood 
is forced back to these organs, congestion and 
inflammation may follow r . The patient may vomit 
blood (seldom). There may result chronic 
dyspepsia, diarrhea, enlarged spleen, piles, ab- 
dominal dropsy, or more than one of these condi- 
tions may exist at the same time. This disease is 
called cirrhosis, or sclerosis of the liver, mean- 
ing a hardening. It is also called hob-nailed 
liver, rum-drinkers' liver, whisky liver, etc. With 
the single exception of syphilis, this disease can 
only be produced by alcohol, and is frequently 



138 ALCOHOL. 

met with in habitual drinkers. During the early 
stages of inflammation liver abscess may form. 
Death may occur in the early stages before the 
liver has had time to shrink. There is no cure 
for this disease. 

It has seemed important to state clearly the 
effects of alcohol, therefore its action upon the 
liver has been given in full. The effect of alco- 
hol upon the kidneys is much the same as upon 
the liver, and is the most chronic of all forms of 
kidney-disease.. The blood-vessels supplying the 
kidneys are large in proportion to the size of the 
organ. This subjects them to a proportionately 
large amount of the irritating effects of alcohol, 
hence their great liability to disease. 

Through the circulation, the irritating effects- 
of alcohol first produce congestion, and if con- 
tinued a low form of inflammation. At first the 
kidneys are somewhat enlarged, later they are 
greatly reduced in size and their function or 
power to act is largely destroyed. Like the liver 
the kidneys have a connective tissue framework, 
which penetrates the organ in all directions. The 
low form of inflammation produces an over- 
growth of this framework, which later contracts 
and destroys the organ. The shrinkage is mostly 
marked at the convex or outer portion, because 
it contains the most connective tissue. 

The first effect of alcohol upon the kidneys is 
upon the secretive cells which line the collecting 
tubes, because in their efforts to remove from 



ALCOHOL. 139 

the circulation the irritating products of alcohol, 
these cells become overworked, and the blood, 
which is always defective in alcoholics, affords 
poor nourishment ; hences the shrinking of the 
collecting tubes and their dilated extremities, 
which are called glomeruli, is among the earliest 
changes. 

Following close upon this change are the 
thickening of the arteries and the increase of con- 
nective tissue. With such increase the capsule, 
or thin membrane which envelops the kidneys, 
becomes thickened and firmly adherent to the sur- 
face of the organs. The contraction of the new 
tissue constricts some of the collecting tubes, and 
the distal or outer end may continue to secrete 
or collect from the passing blood-stream, and 
there being no escape for the fluid the little tube 
becomes dilated, and thus small cysts or sacs are 
formed. These may vary in size from a millet- 
seed to a small marble. 

The contracting fibers close around the glom- 
eruli, or dilated ends of the collecting tubes, and 
press them together in groups or bunches. Some 
are destroyed, being converted into a solid mass 
of connective tissue, the delicate blood-vessels 
which fill them during health having been wholly 
obliterated. Others only show a thickening of 
the connective tissue capsule which enclose them. 
At the periphery or outer surface there may be 
only new cell-formation, some round, others 
spindle-shape, or partially developed. The glom- 



140 ALCOHOL. 

eruli may contain coagulated plasma, or the fluid 
part of the blood, which now somewhat resembles 
starch. Some may contain pus. Some of the col- 
lecting tubes are destroyed, others are surrounded 
or embedded in connective tissue overgrowth. 
These are irregularly dilated, the contracting 
fibers which surround them have drawn them 
outward. Some are filled with cells — the se- 
creting cells which line them. These have been 
pressed out and are in all stages of degeneration. 
The nucleus or central body of some of these 
cells may be distinguished, but the outlines of 
the cells are lost. The whole organ is shrunken, 
the cortex or outer portion is nearly obliterated. 
This is called sclerosis. It is one form of Bright' s 
disease, and is most often produced by alcohol. 

With this form of Bright's disease there is 
little or no dropsy ; with other forms there is 
dropsy from the first. All forms may be pro- 
duced by alcohol. 

The heart is enlarged, and the muscle-fibers of 
the small arteries throughout the whole body are 
increased, as a result of the extra strain upon 
them. Blood cannot circulate freely through the 
kidneys, as many small vessels have been de- 
stroyed, hence it is crowded into other channels. 
This renders them full and tense, and the heart- 
beat is increased in proportion. These changes 
will be considered next. 

Atheroma is the name given to degeneration 
of the walls of the arteries, i. e., many cells 



ALCOHOL. 141 

change more or less to fat. This is caused by a 
low form of inflammation, long-continued. The 
arteries are formed of three membranes or coats, 
the inner, middle and outer. They are not nour- 
ished by the blood that flows through them, but 
are supplied with a separate system of blood- 
vessels. Between the middle and inner coats is a 
layer of connective tissue, and it is this connect- 
ive tissue layer which shows the first effects of 
chronic inflammation produced by alcohol. The 
connective tissue becomes thickened and swollen, 
and new cells form. This new growth, and later 
the thickening of all the coats of the arteries, 
lessens their size. The opening becomes smaller. 
The circulation is lessened in the system of ves- 
sels which nourish the arteries. The blood is 
poor, the contraction of the newly-formed tissue 
causes pressure, and together this is abundant 
cause for the arteries to lose their "tone," and be- 
come soft and flabby, infiltrated with or changed 
to fat. 

Following this change, the middle or muscular 
coat is affected next, because it does the most 
work. Elasticity is destroyed, and the surround- 
ing tissue lacks nourishment. The small arteries 
are liable to have all their coats affected, because 
they are thinner. These arteries are most liable 
to rupture, and less liable to recover should in- 
jury occur. 

While in this condition the cells constituting 
the arteries are unable to exert their selective 



142 ALCOHOL. 

power, and lime salts are frequently deposited. 
These salts are always present in the circulation, 
but in health are prevented from entering the 
walls of the blood-vessels. Any disturbance of 
the nervous system leaves the tissues without 
proper support, and the individual cells lack intel- 
ligent guidance. They are unable to absorb prop- 
er nourishment. The large arteries are compara- 
tively free from danger because their walls are 
thicker and stronger. The medium sized arteries 
are most affected, those of the upper and lower 
extremities and those supplying the brain. As 
stated, the middle or muscular coat of the arter- 
ies is affected first, because they do the most 
work. Their activity and poor nourishment de- 
stroy their vitality. The lime salts which are 
deposited may involve the whole of the middle 
coat, or occur in patches. The external and in- 
ternal coats may also be included, and ultimately 
the vessels become changed into a hard brittle 
tube, like the stem of a clay pipe. 

In amputation such arteries are secured with 
difficulty, as the ligature or thread with which 
they are tied is liable to cut through. This con- 
dition of the arteries is the principal cause of 
apoplexy, as in their diseased condition any 
strain, heavy lifting, or sudden bending forward, 
may so increase the blood-pressure as to cause 
rupture of such vessels in the brain. 

Apoplexy may follow Bright's disease. The 
kidneys are small organs, yet because they con- 



ALCOHOL. 143 

tain such a number of blood-vessels, and because 
much blood passes through them, when the cir- 
culation in these organs is interfered with, much 
blood is forced back toward the heart, and this 
organ has so much extra work to do that it be- 
comes enlarged. At first it beats with more force 
to meet the increased demands made upon it. 
This produces more strain upon the arteries, and 
exertion at this time may cause one of the dis- 
eased vessels to snap like a glass tube. This 
usually takes place in the brain, and is the cause 
of apoplexy. The patient loses the power of mo- 
tion, sensation and consciousness, falling and ly- 
ing as if dead. The hemorrhage causes pressure 
and more or less destruction of nerve-fibers. If 
in a vital spot, death results. 

In health some of these nerve-fibers are con- 
tinued downward and aid in the formation of 
the spinal cord. That part of the cord formed 
by these fibers is called the motor tract, because 
through this tract the brain sends the order or 
influence which controls the action of voluntary 
muscles, i. e., those muscles under the control 
of the will ; but the hemorrhage has destroyed 
some of these fibers and caused pressure upon 
others. There has been a wreck and the nerves 
are unable to act, and paralysis is the result. The 
track must be cleared before traffic can be carried 
on. 

The brain is divided into two lateral halves, 
and the hemorrhage occurs only upon one side, 



144 ALCOHOL. 

hence but one side of the body is affected. The 
fibers forming the motor tract cross at the base 
of the brain, hence the side of the body that is 
paralyzed is opposite to that on which the hem- 
orrhage occurs. The hemorrhage usually occurs 
on the left side, because on this side the circula- 
tion is more on a direct line from the heart, there- 
fore the pressure is greater. 

Occasionally the paralysis and loss of motion 
are slight at first and the patient retains con- 
sciousness, yet the hemorrhage may be persistent 
and increase slowly. These cases grow gradually 
worse and end fatally. "In the center of the 
clot there is coagulated blood and brain-matter 
in varying quantities, according to the severity 
of the hemorrhage. In the center of the clot is 
the ruptured vessel. The clot produces inflam- 
mation and is followed by the escape of serous 
fluid into the surrounding tissue. This increased 
nourishment and lack of nerve-control results in 
a new connective tissue growth, which encloses 
the clot. Later the clot degenerates, softens and 
is absorbed, leaving the patient greatly improved. 
The absorption is gradual, so is the improvement. 

"Sometimes the brain-substance around the 
clot degenerates, producing localized softening. 

"The torn nerve-fibers are not replaced, and 
this explains why paralysis from apoplexy may 
be followed by improvement, but never by com- 
plete recovery." 



ALCOHOL, 145 

Permanent loss of function corresponds to the 
number of nerve-fibers destroyed. 

When the arteries are diseased and relaxed, as 
described, an aneurism may form. This is a 
tumor of an artery. First there is weakness at 
a given point, and the blood-pressure causes a 
bulging, and with every heart-beat the blood is 
driven into this pouched-out process with in- 
creasing force, because there is no outlet. As 
it enlarges it receives more blood and suffers 
more pressure. The tumor continues to grow un- 
til the vessel-wall becomes so thin that it rup- 
tures. This occurs in large vessels, and rupture 
is followed by rapid death. 

While an enlarged heart and powerful heart- 
action may aid in producing apoplexy, aneurism, 
etc., it should be remembered that this condition 
of the heart is not permanent. Over-action and 
increased blood-supply result in inflammation 
and new tissue growth in the heart as elsewhere. 

The delicate membnane which lines the heart- 
cavities may become inflamed and destroyed. 
This often follows inflammatory rheumatism, and 
may follow the use of alcohol. In health this 
membrane and that lining the arteries have the 
power to prevent blood-clots. If destroyed, blood- 
clots form. Such a clot is called a thrombus. A 
clot may become detached and carried by the 
circulation to the brain, may enter an artery too 
small for its passage and lodge ; that is called an 
embolus. The artery being plugged, that part of 



146 ALCOHOL. 

the brain usually supplied by this artery degen- 
erates from lack of nourishment. This consti- 
tutes softening of the brain. An abscess may 
form (rare.) 

"The softened structure presents no distinct 
outline, but passes insensibly into the surround- 
ing tissue. The nerve-cells suffer first, next the 
nerve-fibers. These are merely prolongations of 
the cells. The cells which suffer next constitute 
the gray matter of the brain, and last the con- 
nective tissue framework and blood-vessels de- 
generate, the whole appearing as broken-down 
fibers, granular matter and fat. Later all traces 
of structure disappear, having been carried away 
by the circulation." Softening of the brain may 
occur whenever nutrition is interfered with. 

The aorta is a large artery and forms the great 
trunk of the arterial circulation ; the lower left 
ventricle or cavity of the heart opens into this 
artery, and in health this opening is guarded by 
the aortic valve. This valve may become in- 
flamed, connective tissue may form, or lime salts 
may be deposited. In either case the valve be- 
comes rigid, it cannot be pressed back but re- 
mains constantly in the way of the current, and 
interferes with the amount of blood sent out ; 
this is called aortic stenosis. 

The heart is supplied by two arteries called 
the coronary; they branch from the aorta just 
as it leaves the heart. In cases of the diseased 
valve just described, the coronary arteries re- 



ALCOHOL. 147 

ceive too little blood, and the heart is poorly 
nourished. Besides this the blood is septic — un- 
healthy. Either condition is sufficient to produce 
fatty degeneration, and when occurring from one 
or both of these causes, the whole organ is af- 
fected. 

In health the mitral valve guards the opening 
between the two cavities in the left side of the 
heart. The same changes may occur in this valve 
as those just described in the aortic valve. These 
valves are formed of picked-up folds of the deli- 
cate membrane which lines the heart-cavities. 
When lime salts are deposited the valves are un- 
yielding and stand in the way of the flow of 
blood as described. When there is new connect- 
ive tissue, and this contracts, the valve becomes 
shrunken and will not fit the opening. When the 
valves fail to open and this interferes with the 
current, it is called stenosis, or narrowing. When 
the openings are improperly closed and the blood 
is allowed to flow back past the shrunken valve, 
it is called regurgitation. 

The valves in the right side of the heart, the 
tricuspid and pulmonic, are seldom affected, be- 
cause the right side of the heart has only to re- 
ceive the blood from the return circulation and 
send it out through the lungs, while the left side 
receives it back from the lungs and must now 
force it out through the whole arterial system; 
hence there is more strain on the left side and 
more liability to disease. 



148 ALCOHOL. 

When a valve becomes rigid from a deposit of 
lime salts, there may be both stenosis and regur- 
gitation at the same opening. When the heart is 
first affected, the over-action and increased blood- 
supply may cause inflammation and new con- 
nective tissue growth in the substance of the or- 
gan. Later the contraction of the newly-formed 
tissue causes pressure upon many muscle-fibers, 
and they lose their striation and degenerate. The 
heart and all voluntary muscle-fibers show light 
and dark lines. This is called striation. Many 
small vessels are obliterated, and this lessens nu- 
trition still more, and fatty degeneration follows, 
i. e., more or less of the heart-muscles turn to fat, 
the organ becomes soft and flabby, and the sur- 
face mottled by light streaks of the new con- 
nective tissue and darker streaks of the heart- 
muscle. Inflammation of the heart-muscle usu- 
ally follows inflammation of the membrane which 
surrounds the heart ; this membrane is called the 
pericardium. In this case the inflammation may 
occur on all sides alike. The inflammation may 
extend from that of the membrane which lines 
the heart-cavities. In this case it would occur 
on the left side first, because this side has the 
most work to do, hence is most affected. The 
cavities on the right side are seldom affected. In 
either case, the inflammatory process would occur 
by extension, and would first involve the nearest 
muscular fibers, or those lying in contact with 
the membrane. 



ALCOHOL. 149 

Fatty infiltration of the heart may follow in- 
flammation of the pericardium. The fat, which 
is always found on the surface of the organ, 
finds its way between the muscle-fibers, displaces 
and compresses them, diminishes the blood-sup- 
ply, and interferes with the contractile power of 
the organ. This interferes with nourishment and 
fatty degeneration of the heart-muscle follows. 
As stated, fatty degeneration may occur in any 
case where nutrition is interfered with. All of 
these heart-changes may and often do result 
from the use of alcohol. 

Upon the brain and spinal cord, alcohol pro- 
duces the same efifect as upon other organs or 
tissues. First congestion, second a low form of 
inflammation, followed by an overgrowth of con- 
nective tissue, and the contraction of this pro- 
duces hardening as elsewhere. 

The contraction of the connective tissue in the 
brain and cord causes pressure upon the nerves, 
nerve-cells and surrounding tissue, obliterates 
many small vessels, interferes with nutrition, and 
the result is hardening and loss of function. The 
hardening is called sclerosis. This is responsible 
for many forms of spinal paralysis, and may be 
caused by alcohol or other irritants. 

At first there is an increase in the blood-supply, 
the result of irritation ; this is followed by con- 
nective tissue overgrowth, and later by degen- 
eration. Sometimes one part of the cord is af- 
fected, and sometimes another. 



150 ALCOHOL. 

Alcohol also produces a low form of inflam- 
mation of the mucous membrane lining the bron- 
chial tubes and air-cells of the lungs. This is 
chronic bronchitis. Alcohol produces the same 
changes here as elsewhere. At first the mucous 
membrane is congested and thickened; this les- 
sens the caliber or size of the air-tubes, and the 
secretions are increased by reason of the increased 
amount of blood. This produces irritation and 
cough, and more or less expectoration of thick 
tenacious mucus. The submucous or deeper tis- 
sue become infiltrated with newly formed con- 
nective tissue cells ; later this new growth which 
surrounds the tubes contracts, causing dilation. 
These changes may occur in patches or be exten- 
sively diffused. While in this condition lime 
salts may be deposited in the tubes and mucous 
membrane, the same as in the arteries, and they 
lose their elasticity and -remain rigid, or per- 
manently dilated. In this condition the secre- 
tions may be profuse. At times the color may be 
greenish, and the odor offensive. 

The same catarrhal condition may be produced 
in the mucous membrane of the digestive tract, 
causing chronic diarrhea. Chronic catarrh may 
also result. The alcohol absorbs the water from 
every part of the body, and this is the reason so 
much water is needed after drinking liquor. Al- 
cohol also extracts water from the blood-corpus- 
cles, leaving them shrunken. 

The nerves and nerve-cells are also atrophied, 



ALCOHOL. i5i 

or shrunken and hardened. As the brain-sub- 
stance shrinks, the ventricles are dilated and 
filled with a watery fluid. The absorption of 
water causes condensation and hardening of all 
the tissues. This is most marked in the brain 
because the brain requires so much blood and 
contains so much alcohol. The brain is the seat 
of reason, judgment, memory, emotion, sympa- 
thy, charity, love, etc., but the effects of alcohol 
bring these noble qualities to the brute level. 

Delirium tremens is caused by alcohol, which 
absorbs so much water from the brain-tissues. 
As the brain shrivels and shrinks, and the vessels 
become irregular, the optic nerve, or nerve of 
sight, becomes so drawn and bent that it trans- 
mits to the brain tortuous, grotesque and fright- 
ful objects, while the excitement of the victim is 
the result of the poison acting as an irritant. 
For a time the user of alcohol lives fast in a 
physical sense, and enjoys animal exhilaration, 
but while he is doing this the changes already 
described are taking place, slowly but surely. It 
is true that it may require several years to pro- 
duce the change in some people, w T hile in others 
the same condition is produced in a much shorter 
time, but sooner or later the changes occur to 
all who continue the use of alcohol ; and sooner 
or later there is found a physical weakness, loss 
of appetite, force and energy. At this time, in 
many cases, even the smell of alcohol will cause 
a feeling of sickness and sometimes vomiting. 



152 ALCOHOL 

Flushing of the face, so common to habitual 
drinkers, does not denote health, but is caused 
by paralysis of the nerves governing the size of 
the arteries supplying the skin, and they dilate 
and contain too much blood. If long continued 
there will be permanent disfigurement, from the 
contraction of new connective tissue, which sur- 
rounds the arteries, leaving them permanently 
enlarged. 

Rheumatism, neuralgia, headache, inflamma- 
tion of the bow r els, peritonitis, pleurisy, inflam- 
matory conditions of the eye, etc., may be pro- 
duced by alcohol. Many drinkers experience fre- 
quent attacks of sore throat, and this trouble may 
become chronic, while the pathological anatomy 
of the nose can be studied without a microscope. 

The catarrhal condition of the throat may ex- 
tend through the eustachian tubes to the middle 
ear, and produce abscess, or deafness. 

The irritating effects of alcohol can be easily 
proven by applying it to the back of the hand 
several times a day. It will soon produce redness 
and inflammation. It should be remembered that 
the mucous membrane and tissues of the internal 
organs are far more sensitive and delicate than 
the outer layer of skin which covers the hand. 

Alcohol absorbs all surplus earnings, gradually 
undermines the health, takes away pride, ambi- 
tion and power of doing things requiring quick 
consciousness, accuracy, and persevering applica- 
tion. It is responsible for the diseased kidney 



ALCOHOL. 153 

in Bright's disease, the tremor of the drunkard, 
and the diseased action of a sclerosed liver. 

Alcohol makes drunkards, ruins youth, de- 
stroys homes, encourages crime, spreads poverty, 
disease and death, one hundred thousand filling 
drunkards' graves every year. Alcohol destroys 
all delicacy, courtesy, and all the nobler prin- 
ciples of life. The sense of justice and right are 
gone, and there is no vice into which the victim 
of drunkenness may not easily slide, and no crime 
which he may not commit. Between this con- 
dition and insanity there is but one step. Eight- 
tenths of all misery and crime are said to be due 
to alcohol. 

Those who pay fifteen and twenty-five cents 
a drink for their whisky may be somewhat dis- 
appointed, while those whose financial condition 
compels them to buy cheaper grades may feel 
somewhat jubilant, to know that the "stuff" is all 
of about the same quality. The author under- 
stands, of course, that there are some who may 
not agree with this statement, yet it is undoubt- 
edly true; and while much more evidence could 
be given, the following seems sufficient : 

The author is personally acquainted with a 
bartender in a fashionable saloon, who states 
that the same price has been paid for every gal- 
lon of whisky purchased by his employer during 
the past two years, and that price was $2.00 a 
gallon. He says those who paid ten cents and 



154 ALCOHOL. 

those who paid twenty-five cents a drink, received 
the same grade of whisky. 

The following experiments and tests are taken 
from a paper by J. J. McCook, Professor of 
Trinity College. The quotation does not include 
the whole paper, which was read before the 
Twentieth Century Club, and published by the 
club. Professor McCook says : 

"My studies were made upon seventy-three 
specimens, forty-two of them whiskies obtained 
as follows : A best quality bought by a well- 
dressed agent and a cheapest bought by a poorly- 
clad agent, and a best and cheapest bought by my- 
self explicitly for analysis ; at each of four retail 
establishments of different grades, and at two 
drug stores of different grades, samples of club 
varieties and of pure spirits, or the like from 
wholesalers ; eight specimens from the persons 
of drunken police prisoners ; three specimens from 
clean and ancient pedigree. These were all 
analyzed in the Trinity College laboratory by my 
colleague, Professor R. B. Riggs, Ph. D., and 
were also inspected by taste and smell by two 
expert judges engaged in the business, and by 
two amateurs. Of fourteen of the cheapest of 
these specimens, including seven from prisoners, 
three were 31.1 per cent, below proof, i. e., more 
than one-third water; and the mean of all was 
17.9 per cent, below proof, or over one-sixth 
water. A specimen since ' obtained from a five 



ALCOHOL, 155 

cent free-lunch saloon in the slums of New 
York has 31.5 per cent alcohol, i. e., 26.7 be- 
low proof." 

Regarding fusel oil, "traces were found in every 
one of the fifty-one specimens examined, but only 
traces. The New York five cent saloon is the 
first exception, as there was none there. I attach 
no importance to this difference, because I am 
convinced by these experiments that the fusel oil 
in whisky has been talked about and written 
about infinitely more than either its quantity or 
its quality deserves, and more particularly that 
age has practically little or nothing to do with it 
But if it proves anything it is that whisky com- 
monly dismissed under the contemptuous appella- 
tion 'cheap,' is at least as good in this respect as 
any other. 

"The same is true of sulphate, of which there 
is a trace in every specimen. 

"The same is also true, I am persuaded, of the 
more active poisons, in general ; there seemed no 
likelihood that these would be found because there 
appeared no plausible reason for putting them in. 
However, the long and elaborate test for arsenic 
was made in seventeen cases chosen for their 
representative character, and arsenic was found 
in three; two of these were choice varieties of 
whisky, while all six of the prisoners' specimens, 
were found free, and out of five cheap purchased 
specimens, only one was in the arsenic list. The 



156 ALCOHOL. 

New York slum sample, though subjected to two 
examinations, showed no trace of arsenic. 

"Here again, the favorable showing of the 
'cheap' varieties merely spoken of as an amusing 
curiosity of the situation, and as proving 
if it proves anything, that one kind is at least 
as good as another. My experiments show that 
noxious adulterants are not to be expected in even 
the lowest specimens, but as stated there are 
adulterants. They are as follows : Burnt sugar, 
an ounce will color a barrel; glycerine, or 'gum,' 
L e., dissolved sugar, for sweetening, in plain 
English ; also for communicating that oily look 
which connoisseurs gaze at with such rapture 
as they pour a little puddle of the fine old brand 
into the hollow of their hand, etc. These addi- 
tions are harmless. Then there is water, the 
cheapest of all adulterants. But the dealers claim 
that 'water don't hurt nobody.' 

"What is commonly called genuine whisky 
owes its color, taste and odor to oak. I have 
whisky bought by myself direct from the still, 
and kept in bottles for over two years. It re- 
mained as it was at the beginning in every respect, 
and is so different from the whisky of commerce 
in odor, taste and color, that three who sampled 
it, including one dealer, failed to recognize it a$ 
whisky. This fact is well known by the more 
thoughtful dealers, I have since ascertained. But I 
demonstrated it to myself by forty experiments 



ALCOHOL. 157 

in which pieces of oak and other woods, charred 
and uncharred, were immersed in various kinds of 
spirits in corked and uncorked bottles, and the 
changes in color, odor and taste carefully noted. 
Charring hastens the coloring process and tends 
to communicate a reddish to the brown or yel- 
low. And I find that chestnut gives the same 
color and taste as oak. A sample in which charred 
chestnut had been steeped for a few weeks passed 
with my most expert professional sampler as 
three-year-old whisky. 

"I tried four dealers, not one who had been 
less than twenty years in the business, before I 
could find one who would venture to commit 
himself by tasting my samples. One of them 
accepted, but later the sample came back without 
a word. Another, a mixer of strange drinks in 
clubs for thirty-eight years, frankly declined, 
saying that he had fooled people hundreds of 
times himself and knew he could be fooled. 

"It is the alcohol that does the business, not 
the fusel oil ; not the sulphuric acid ; not the 
arsenic ; not the burnt sugar ; not the glycerine ; 
not the bead oil — certainly not the water. 

Of course the author understands that many, 
perhaps the majority, will refuse to accept the 
statements of Professors McCook and Riggs. The 
public, including druggists and doctors have al- 
ways been cautioned regarding the different 
grades of whisky, and so thoroughly has this 



158 ALCOHOL. 

teaching been impressed upon their minds that 
many of them know they are true. Are they 
true? Is there a man, any one, who by taste, 
smell or color, can inform us regarding the qual- 
ity of whisky? Years ago, while engaged in the 
drug business, the author, upon different occa- 
sions, gave to representative liquor men samples 
of different grades of whisky for the purpose of 
having them pass judgment upon the quality ac- 
cording to taste and odor, and in no instance did 
they give an intelligent answer. They were as 
likely to select one variety as another. There- 
fore, the author understands this part of Dr. 
McCook's experiments are true. If we cannot 
depend upon taste or smell, upon what can 
we base an opinion? If we refuse to accept the 
analytical tests of Dr. McCook how shall we deal 
intelligently with the different grades of whisky ? 
Can any one solve the problem? Every one must 
understand that public opinion regarding the 
quality of whisky has emanated from : 

Its color — which is artificial. 

Its odor — which is artificial. 

Its taste — which is artificial. 

To the different styles of packages. 

To the different colored labels. 

And to the persuasive powers of the dealer. 



TOBACCO. 



Tobacco derives its botanical name nicotiana 
from Gene Nicot, who introduced tobacco into 
France. Nicotine is the name given to the poi- 
sonous principle of tobacco. Tobacco is said to 
be a native of America, and now cultivated in 
most parts of the world, and nowhere more 
abundantly than in the United States. Virginia 
is the most celebrated state in the Union for 
raising tobacco. 

From its earliest history the use of tobacco has 
been bitterly opposed. As early as the fifteenth 
century tobacco was said to be loathsome to the 
eye and nose, harmful to the brain, dangerous to 
the lungs, and it was claimed that the fumes re- 
sembled the smoke from the bottomless pit. 

The per cent of nicotine varies with different 
specimens, that grown in Havana, Cuba, contains 
the least, about two per cent. That is why Hava- 
na tobacco is more expensive. The tobacco raised 
in Virginia contains about six per cent. Some 
varieties contain eight per cent. Prussic acid is 
the most virulent or deadly poison known. With 
this single exception nicotine is the most rapidly 
fatal in its effects, one or two drops placed on 
the tongue of a dog or cat causing almost instant 
death. The faintest odor is all that is needed to 



160 TOBACCO. 

destroy small birds. From one to five drops will 
destroy human life. The oil of tobacco contains 
nicotine and is a virulent poison. Nicotine is a 
colorless oily liquid. Nicotianin is the name giv- 
en to a solid volatile principle to which tobacco 
is said to owe most of its flavor. 

The poison of tobacco affects the whole nerv- 
ous system. The throat, stomach, brain and heart 
receive the first and most severe effects, hence 
nausea and palpitation of the heart are early 
symptoms. The tobacco-heart is well known to 
most people. Through its power to produce dys- 
pepsia, tobacco may be the primary cause of near- 
ly all diseases. With some the irritating effects 
of tobacco cause the heart to beat violently, and 
become more or less irregular in its action. This 
condition of excitement is very exhausting, es- 
pecially to the young, or to those with a nervous 
temperament. 

The increased heart-action may cause increase 
in the size of that organ, and there is often an 
increase in tissue, the heart enlarging in order 
to meet the increasing demands made upon it, 
the walls of the heart becoming thicker and 
stronger. This constitutes enlargement of the 
heart. The pulse becomes full, the arteries con- 
gested, there may be headache from increased 
blood-pressure, general restlessness, shooting 
pains in the chest, neuralgia, etc. These are Na- 
ture's language, telling us of the poison and irri- 
tation in the system, and demanding their remov- 



TOBACCO. 161 

al. There may be dry cough, caused by congested 
arteries in the lungs. 

All these conditions are increased with the 
continued use of tobacco. In the young or phys- 
ically weak, the nerves supplying the heart may 
become so exhausted that the organ may nol be 
able to discharge its duty, and there results a 
constant strain which causes the heart to dilate ; 
it becomes larger yet there is no increase in tis- 
sue, because the blood is unhealthy and irritating, 
the circulation is feeble, the heart is poorly nour- 
ished, and as it enlarges the walls become cor- 
respondingly thinner and weaker. This is called 
dilation of the heart. In this condition the heart 
is weak and the pulse feeble. There is a lack of 
blood in the distant arteries, hence the body is 
poorly nourished. There may be headache from 
lack of blood, there may be faintness from the 
same cause. 

These heart-changes frequently follow Bright's 
disease, yet Bright's disease may be caused by 
tobacco through its interference with digestion. 
A weak heart means too little blood in the dis- 
tant organs and the peripheral circulation, and 
too much in the central organs. The lungs be- 
come congested and this causes pressure on the 
air-cells and small bronchial tubes, producing ir- 
ritation and cough, with more or less bronchitis, 
which may lead to consumption. 

Glycosuria, or diabetes, is a disease in which 
there is too much glucose or grape-sugar circu- 



1G2 TOBACCO. 

lating in the blood. In health the liver controls 
this product of starch-digestion, hence glycosuria 
is thought by some to be a disease of the liver. 
By others it is charged to the kidneys, pancreas, 
brain, some undiscovered condition of the nerv- 
ous system, etc. Primarily this disease is called 
glycosuria, later the kidneys are affected, causing 
Bright's disease. All investigators are agreed 
that in glycosuria there is some disordered state 
of the nervous system. What is better calculated 
to cause a disordered state of the nervous system 
than tobacco ? Nothing, unless it is alcohol. Very 
few will pretend to deny that tobacco produces 
more or less exhaustion of the muscular powers ; 
and it is only reasonable to believe that the same 
debilitating effects may be responsible for the 
loss of nerve-control over the internal organs. 

Every one understands this to be true regard- 
ing the heart, and the same reasoning proves it 
true regarding the liver and kidneys, hence the 
failure of these organs to perform their duty, as 
in glycosuria. Tobacco interferes with digestion, 
and when food does not digest it ferments, and 
there result many poisons. The veins of the di- 
gestive tract unite to form the portal vein, and 
this enters the liver, hence many of the poisons 
resulting from indigestion are carried direct to 
this organ. The liver tries to reduce the poison 
but fails, becomes exhausted, the kidneys try to 
eliminate them and also fail. In both cases the 
poison produces inflammation, and disease fol- 



TOBACCO. 163 

lows. Undoubtedly the paralyzing effects of to- 
bacco, its interference with digestion and conse- 
quent lack of nourishment, are sufficient to cause 
glycosuria. This disease is not common, yet is 
quite frequently met, and is here mentioned sim- 
ply to show how tobacco may produce a disease, 
and then be overlooked in the list of causes. Gly- 
cosuria is nearly always fatal, and is often called 
Bright's disease. 

As a primary cause of dyspepsia, tobacco may 
be directly responsible for chronic disease of the 
heart, brain or spinal cord; weak lungs, bron- 
chitis, pneumonia, consumption, cancer, Bright's 
disease, rheumatism, neuralgia, epilepsy, insanity, 
paralysis, weak arteries, followed by softening of 
the brain, by hemorrhage in the brain, apoplexy 
and death. 

More frequently the use of tobacco is followed 
by rheumatism, neuralgia, sciatica, headache, pain 
about the eyes, fixed pains about the stomach, 
chest, side, or around the heart, loss of appetite, 
nausea, bad taste in the mouth, catarrh of the 
stomach, throat and head. These conditions are 
explained more fully in other chapters. They 
may be produced by tobacco, alcohol, over-eating, 
or other forms of excess. No one cause is better 
suited to produce these diseases than tobacco, its 
lowering effects upon the vital forces, its paralyz- 
ing effects upon the nervous system, its interfer- 
ence with digestion, followed by the appearance 
of irritating substances in the blood, together 



164 TOBACCO. 

with the poison itself, are sufficient to produce 
any and all kinds of disease. 

With many tobacco produces pallid face, re- 
laxed muscles, yellow skin, languor, darting- 
pains, and loss of appetite. These conditions in- 
crease until some malady steps in and hurries the 
victim to a premature grave. 

When death occurs suddenly it is usually a 
man. Why not a woman ? Because comparative- 
ly few women use tobacco. 

Cancer of the lip usually occurs in men and in 
tobacco-users. Why not in women? 

Experience proves that sudden deaths usually 
claim for their victims those who use tobacco. If 
tobacco is not the cause, what is? Sudden death 
is caused by paralysis of the heart. As stated else- 
where, there are estimated to be six hundred 
million air-cells in the lungs, and they are esti- 
mated to present a surface more than seven times 
greater than the whole outer surface of the body, 
hence the vast network of nerves which supply 
them, and which are exposed to the poisonous 
tobacco-smoke. The same nerve which supplies 
the lungs also supplies the heart. Is it any won- 
der that outraged nature refuses to submit longer, 
the central organ of the system ceases to act, and 
the man topples over dead? 

True, it is claimed that very little of the prod- 
ucts of tobacco reaches the system through the 
lungs, yet on account of the large amount of sur- 
face presented by the air-cells, if the air inhaled 



TOBACCO. 165 

by the smoker contains ever so little of the poison 
there will be enough absorbed to produce serious 
results. The effects of tobacco are received most- 
ly by absorption through the mucous membrane 
of the mouth, throat and stomach, and when this 
subtle poison is thus absorbed it affects the blood, 
which is carried to all parts of the^body, produc- 
ing an exciting and fevered condition, the whole 
nervous system becoming weakened. 

Tobacco increases the secretions of all mucous 
surfaces, and this is directly responsible for 
catarrh of the stomach, throat, nasal passages, 
and the various cavities or sinuses in the head, 
which are lined with mucous membrane. The 
tobacco-heart is better known, only because it is 
more dangerous than the tobacco-throat. As a 
rule, the throats of tobacco-users present a red, 
swollen, and inflamed condition. This causes 
more or less effort to dislodge the secretions, 
which are continually present in varying quan- 
tities. 

The catarrhal conditions are more marked 
in the stomach and throat with those who 
chew, and in the bronchial tubes, throat and nasal 
passages with those who smoke. Chewing is more 
injurious than smoking because more of the poi- 
son is absorbed. Prize-fighters and athletes un- 
derstand from practical experience the debilitat- 
ing effects of tobacco, and never use it while in 
training. 

Nausea, a feeble pulse and cold skin, are con- 



16b TOBACCO. 

ditions frequently met in those who use tobacco, 
and especially in the young. 

But some one inquires : "How is it that some 
people live to be eighty or ninety years of age, 
and even older, and use tobacco all their lives? 
If this is true, such cases occur but seldom, while 
on the other hand each one can enumerate many, 
perhaps scores, whose health has been impaired 
by the use of tobacco. The author has cured (?) 
many cases of supposed heart-disease. With 
medicine? No, but simply by advising the 
patient to stop using tobacco. 

The first experience of every user of tobacco 
proves it to be a poison of a dangerous kind. It 
acts as a powerful depressant, causing nausea, 
faintness, vomiting, dizziness and general relax- 
ation. These facts can be proven by every one 
commencing the use of tobacco. Tobacco checks 
digestion, nutrition and growth, especially in the 
young. With the young the "body must not only 
maintain its equilibrium — repair and waste — but 
it must grow and develop. Again, the cells and 
tissues of the young are not fully matured, they 
are not as strong and resistant as in the adult, 
hence it is at this time that the effects of to- 
bacco are most disastrous. 

Careful experiments prove that schoolboys 
who use tobacco are on an average ten per cent 
lower in their studies than boys who do not use 
it. The reason is that there is a gradual decline 
in the mental powers caused by lack of nutrition. 



TOBACCO. 167 

In either men or boys there is a decline of mental 
control, because the brain is weakened, irritated 
and poorly nourished. Degenerative changes 
sometimes follow which affect the nerve of sight. 

The different tissues of the body contain phos- 
phorus. The brain is estimated to contain one 
ounce of this element. If phosphorus is exposed 
to air, it immediately unites with the oxygen and 
spontaneous combustion is the result, producing 
intense heat. One-fifth of all the blood in the 
body is required to nourish the brain ; hence one- 
fifth of all the oxygen absorbed from the air we 
breathe is carried by the circulation to the brain, 
and unites with the phosphorus contained there, 
in order that our thoughts may breathe and our 
words may burn. Phosphorus is absorbed from 
the soil by the plants which are used as food. 

The presence in the brain of so large an amount 
of phosphorus, and the readiness with which it 
unites with oxygen, are sufficient evidence that 
nature has designed that w r e should exercise free- 
ly in the open air, and also that our lungs should 
be strong and capable of full expansion, that we 
may inhale an abundance of oxygen. This keeps 
the fire burning, sends a glow to the cheek, a 
fire to the eye, and lights up the whole counten- 
ance with an expression that many tobacco-users 
do not possess. Milk, eggs, fish, whole wheat, 
peas, beans, etc., are mentioned as containing a 
large percentage of phosphorus. Pork, fine 
flour, pastry, bologna, red pepper, old cheese, 



168 TOBACCO. 

strong tea and coffee, beer, whisky, cigarettes, 
cigars and old pipes are not mentioned as articles 
containing phosphorus. Some one has said that 
a hog stuffed with tobacco would make a fit of- 
fering for the devil. 

Convulsions may result from the use of tobac- 
co, and are caused by the irritating effects of the 
nicotine, and also by the irritating substances re- 
sulting from indigestion caused by tobacco. The 
brain and spinal cord are known as the central 
nervous system. The voluntary muscles, or those 
under the control of the will, are supplied by 
nerves having their origin in the spinal cord. In 
health the spinal cord with its system of nerves is 
subordinate to the brain; but, through constant 
irritation produced by tobacco, septic blood and 
lack of nourishment, the brain loses control and 
the spinal nerves, irritated, excited and freed 
from the restraining influence of the brain, set 
up a spasmodic action, in accordance with their 
nature. The spasms may be in the form of light, 
twitching and jerking movements, as in the be- 
ginning of some forms of paralysis ; later, de- 
generative changes in the cord produce paralysis 
more or less complete. 

It is admitted that tobacco is not always the 
cause of paralysis, yet paralysis is caused by a 
lack of nourishment and the degenerative change:, 
which follow, and what is better calculated to in- 
terfere with digestion and nutrition than to- 
bacco ? 



TOBACCO. 169 

Apoplexy is a form of paralysis caused by the 
rupture of a vessel in the brain, and the condi- 
tions leading up to the diseased and ruptured ves- 
sel may be the same as just given, i. e., the re- 
sult of tobacco. 

There are eight hundred millions of people 
using tobacco. Is that any evidence that to- 
bacco is not harmful ? No, for there are many 
more who use beer, whisky, morphine, or cocaine, 
and no one pretends that these are not injurious. 
EVery one understands that they cripple the con- 
sumer physically, mentally and morally, that they 
deprave, degrade and enslave, and in time reduce 
the user to the brute level. 

Henry Ward Beecher once said, "A man is a 
being who stands with one hand upon Heaven 
and the other upon Hell." The user of tobacco 
and whisky is not such a being, cannot be. We 
are told that the highest type of manhood is man. 
"A man is one whose body is a willing servant to 
the mind, and whose mind is a clear, cold logic- 
engine, with all parts of equal strength, whose 
passions are trained to come to a halt by a vigor- 
ous will. A man loves all beauty, whether of 
nature or of art, and hates all vileness, including 
whisky and tobacco." 



QUACKS AND PATENT MEDICINES. 



Some of the following is taken from "Secret 
Nostrums and Systems/' a book published by Dr. 
Oleson of Chicago. 

Prominent among the quacks are those who, 
disguised as physicians, abu^e the confidence of 
the young. This is made possible by the failure 
on the part of the parents to properly instruct 
their children. Great pains may be taken with 
their education, and the teaching of trades and 
professions, and how to accumulate wealth. But 
almost without exception they are left in ig- 
norance regarding those equally important sub- 
jects, sexual hygiene, marriage and divorce. The 
neglect to instruct upon this subject contributes 
to the success of the so-called specialist-quacks, 
who grow rich on the savings, ignorance and 
fears of their patients. 

The only way to save young people and prevent 
their falling into the hands of these sharks is to 
educate them. Give them the knowledge which 
has the power of protection. I know there are 
many who think children and young people 
should be left in ignorance regarding these ques- 
tions. Many say they will find out these things 
fast enough. Others say Nature will give them 
the knowledge as fast as they are able to under- 



QUACKS AND PATENT MEDICINES. 171 

stand. Strange, Nature does not give them the 
knowledge of mathematics, anatomy, etc. Strange 
the public does not know that the quack is not 
professional but mercantile in the lowest and 
most degraded sense. "He has goods to sell and 
his business is to sell them. The higher the price, 
the better the bargain. It is immaterial to him 
whether the patient needs the goods or not. 
Quacks soon reap a harvest, and the world turns 
willingly and with equal gullibility to their suc- 
cessors. The quack is multitudinous. Every 
season sees new forms of quackery exploited and 
all succeed. The number of quacks and quack 
agencies is on the increase. The boldness and 
offensiveness of their advertising methods are 
working an injury which demands more than 
ordinary notice. 

"Many quacks now work under the guise of 
agencies or companies. They have labora- 
tories (?), consulting rooms and elaborate meth- 
ods of advertising by circulars, hand-bills, and 
newspapers," all correspondence being "strictly 
private." "So complete is the system that there 
are few young men and growing youths who do 
not get hold of some disgusting, or to them terri- 
fying, notice picturing the horrible results of 
some conditions in life, that may be absolutely 
free from danger. Thousands are thus fright- 
ened into a seeming necessity of placing them- 
selves under the treatment of those scoundrels, 
these abortions who call themselves doctors, and 



172 QUACKS AND PATENT MEDICINES. 

who wring from their subjects their last dollar. 
In the first place the case needed no treatment, 
but -the fakes, in order to keep the money rolling 
in, have so harassed and frightened their victims 
that mental strain follows, and a victim once in 
the toils of these unholy agencies is subject to 
influences tending to keep him there. It is the 
aim of the quack to produce as much morbidness, 
despair and distress as possible, for while in this 
condition the victim is more easily "bled," thus 
making the practice a foul prostitution of med- 
icine." 

"These quacks without character or conscience 
are allowed to plaster telegraph poles and other 
public places with announcements of wonderful 
cures." This is a nuisance to intelligent people 
and a serious harm to those unable to judge of 
their honesty. The mails are used freely to carry 
on this low-grade practice. This should not be 
allowed, yet advertising sheets are so worded 
that it is difficult to legislate against them. 

A circular reads : "A physician of thirty years' 
experience is at the head of this Clinic. All man- 
ner of diseases are treated and medicines fur- 
nished. Free consultation. All who are afflicted 
with any chronic disease, of whatsoever nature, 
should avail themselves of this opportunity," etc. 
"Many diseases heretofore incurable, all affec- 
tions of the blood, liver, lungs, heart, kidneys, 
etc., etc., etc., are perfectly amenable to the new 



QUACKS AND PATENT MEDICINES. 173 

and advanced method." Then follow careful di- 
rections about correspondence, etc. 

All such quacks and rascals, regardless of col- 
or, age or sex, should be sent to prison for one 
hundred years and without the cost of a trial, as 
they have already furnished sufficient proof of 
their guilt. 

Another class, the cancer quacks, whose stock 
in trade consists of corns, warts, moles, birth- 
marks, etc. If they should find a genuine can- 
cerous growth could they remove it ? . Possibly 
they could, if it was located on the surface. For 
it is claimed they remove all growths by local 
applications. A good strong arsenic paste, chlo- 
ride of zinc paste, chromic acid paste and many 
others, will remove any kind of tissue or growth, 
cancerous or otherwise. Most of the cancer 
quacks are obliged to use only local applications, 
as it is said they are so ignorant regarding the 
human anatomy that they dare not use the knife. 

Another class are known as the tape-worm doc- 
tors. They call themselves specialists. It is need- 
less to say that all of their patients have tape- 
worm. It is said the tape- worm was known to 
Hippocrates, Aristotle and Pliny, but the modern 
tape-worm doctor probably claims to be greater 
than all these. At what length the tape-worm 
can exist in the digestive tract is not known. 
Twenty feet may be regarded as the extreme 
length, but the tape-worm doctor, with an eye to 
business, claims to have discovered them over 



174 QUACKS AND PATENT MEDICINES. 

three hundred feet in length. The tape-worm 
doctors have no qualms, moral scruples or other 
twinges of conscience. All are fish who come to 
their net. He places in his window a placard 
announcing that no charge is made for consulta- 
tion. Mr. Man sees it, and concludes he will 
have a free consultation ; walks in, relates his 
"symptoms," and is assured he has a tape-worm, 
snake, lizard, scorpion or centipede inhabiting his 
"innards." He demurs. The specialist offers to 
guarantee to produce the animal within two 
hours; fee Sioo if successful, no charge unless 
the parasite is produced. That seems fair, so the 
victim takes the dose (croton oiH, sits down till 
the oil begins to work, and is then taken hastily 
to an earth closet in a dark room, his bowels move 
and in the vessel is found the promised parasite. 
He pays his money and goes off thinking he must 
have been almighty sick with that thing in him. 
Of course the worm had been placed in the vessel 
by the specialists and had probably been used 
dozens of times before. 

There is another class of quacks, the profes- 
sional abortionist. Xo pestilential vapor can com- 
pare with these monsters in human form — this 
leprosy — which drags its slimv length through 
the land, winding its python coils about its victim 
and poisoning the hearts of virtue and mother- 
hood. Xo wonder the old Bible writers said : 
"Whoever toucheth them should be armed with 
iron, and the staff of a spear, that they should be 



QUACKS AND PATENT MEDICINES. 175 

cast forth a withered branch, and that fire and 
burning winds should be their lot." 

PATENT MEDICINES. 

First, patent medicines are prepared under the 
cover of secrecy. Second, they promise impos- 
sibilities, therefore they are unreliable. Accord- 
ing to the formulas published by some of the 
leading chemists in different parts of the United 
States, some patent medicines are worthless while 
others are dangerous. Opium, chloroform, al- 
cohol, sugar of lead, croton oil, tobacco, corro- 
sive sublimate, carbolic acid, tartar emetic, mor- 
phine, etc., are all used more or less freely. 

As a rule physicians furnish medicines below 
the cost of patents. Manufacturers of patents 
are experts in making their packages look large 
and hold little, and those who practise this fraud 
wear fine clothes, ride in fine carriages and live 
in fine houses. 

Patent medicine manufacturers adopt a plan of 
advertising somewhat different from those quacks 
mentioned above. They publish letters from 
those who use their remedies. A letter may be 
in the form of a pathetic appeal from one friend 
to another to try a certain patent medicine. An- 
other letter may read : "I thank God I was in- 
duced to try your remedy," etc., or the manufac- 
turers themselves may state : "This remedy is 
recommended by all first-class physicians every- 
where." All this is absolutely false. The letters 



170 QUACKS AND PATENT MEDICINES. 

recommending a remedy may be genuine, but 
they have been obtained from some poor inno- 
cent, who is innocent of her true physical condi- 
tion. Patent medicine manufacturers love to pub- 
lish letters of recommendation from lawyers, gov- 
ernors, leading society ladies, etc. These people 
may be able to make speeches, sign pardons, lead 
society and show the common people how to 
dress, yet they may be wholly ignorant regarding 
human anatomy and disease. Hence it is easy to 
get their signatures. Some may sign these let- 
ters under a promise that their name and photo- 
graph will appear before the public. 

It should be remembered that some of t*v ? 
shrewdest men in the country are employed to 
furnish these write-ups for patent medicines. 
They have studied the question so closely that 
they know just the words to use to claim the at- 
tention and gain the confidence of the largest 
number of readers. 

A few years ago it was customary to advertise 
these cure-alls as the result of some accidental 
discovery of some traveler in Central Africa or 
South America, and even now some teas are dis- 
covered in the Rocky Mountains. A few years 
ago people went wild over the new remedy 
Moxie Nerve-Food. "The remedy was said to be 
prepared from a plant discovered by Lieut. Moxie 
and, being entirely unknown by botanists, was 
named in his honor. A large reward was offered 
for any chemist who could analyze the new rem- 



QUACKS AND PATENT MEDICINES. 177 

edy, or produce anything like it. And people 
swallowed both the story and the Moxie, and for 
a time the questions of the hour were dropped 
and everybody drank Moxie. Later this remedy 
was analyzed by the chemists, who stated it con- 
tained a decoction of common every-day oats, 
made into a syrup and flavored with sassafras 
and wintergreen." Another remedy, "Unequalled 
and unrivalled in the world of science, and the 
only medicine that can destroy germs that cause 
each particular disease, and restore perfect 
health/' proved by chemical analysis to contain 
only fine granular sugar with not a trace of medi- 
cine." Others contain opium and alcohol. 

There are some people, who take medicine with 
greater regularity than they do their meals. These 
people are usually ill. People who enjoy the 
best health take the least medicine. Some poor 
mortals whose digestive organs are overtaxed, 
who are troubled with habitual constipation, who 
drink too much coffee or strong tea, who use to- 
bacco or alcohol, who work too hard or not 
enough, are troubled with "nervousness" or dys- 
pepsia, and partly through the sympathetic sys- 
tem and partly because the same nerves supply 
both stomach and heart, the latter becomes 
troubled with pain, fluttering and palpitation. 
The brain becomes clouded and the senses dulled. 
Perhaps "that tired feeling" so dear to the patent 
medicine shark, has a firm grip on the poor vic- 
tim, whose imagination adds one horror after an- 



178 QUACKS AND PATENT MEDICINES. 

other until the preponderance of emotion over 
the intellect, and especially over the will power, 
produces the condition variously known as bil- 
iousness, hysteria, melancholy, nervousness, ner- 
vous prostration, etc. 

The patent medicine shark asks for no easier 
mark than this. He soon gets a letter 
such as has already been referred to, when the 
patient (?) "Thanks you from the bottom of her 
heart, for your wonderful medicine. " 

No wonder the fake Cancer-doctor gets $100 
for removing moles and warts. Some people 
were not born right, and others cannot be, with 
their mothers wearing tight corsets and padded 
with false show, and the father with his tobacco- 
heart and rum-polished nerves. 

The enormous sale of patents is maintained by 
the tons of advertising matter that is constantly 
being poured into the laps of the people, and also 
by the fact that in the great majority of cases the 
consumer does not need any medicine. The pur- 
chaser may be a little "under the weather" but 
nature soon asserts her rights with or without 
medicine. 

There is still another class, those kind-hearted 
people who tell us : 

That our profession is such a sacred thing 
That our duty is to cure the sick, not to ask them 
for the tin. 



QUACKS AND PATENT MEDICINES. 179 

They say there's lots of good we can do 
When the children have the rash, 
And they'll always keep us busy 
If we never mention cash. 

They say we should not be avaricious 
And want everything in sight, 
But sleep with one eye open 
And get there day or night. 

But, I ask, when the last great conflagration 
Is melting earth and rock, 
How many'll there be in the multitude 
That'll sigh for the good old "Doc." 

None ; it will be then as now, every one for him- 
self and the devil take the hindmost. But what 
a lesson in hygiene ! The three original elements, 
earth, air and water, all purified. Then will come 
the principles of Eternal Right, from beyond 
the horizon of twilight's purple hills, from that 
vast realm of silence or joy, where the innumer- 
able dwell. 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 



The author understands that the brief thought 
here expressed may have no particular effect on 
the Pure-Food Commissions, yet the following 
statements are true, and will serve to some ex- 
tent to show the "inner workings" of the pure- 
food inspections. . 

It is not difficult to establish in the public 
mind a belief that there is danger of being poi- 
soned, and the arrest now and then of some re- 
spectable business man or firm only strengthens 
this belief. The customers of this particular man 
or firm are quite apt to think that they have had 
a. narrow escape. 

The Pure-Food Commission is giving us many 
fine points and much subtle speculation concern- 
ing what we shall and what ,we shall not eat. 
This is about as useful or valuable as music would 
be to a man laying brick. Regarding the food 
question we will continue to make mistakes as 
long as we depend on the chemist and the super- 
ficial work carried on by the food-inspectors. It 
is claimed that the trusts are back of the Pure- 
Food Commissions. If this is true it explains 
it all. It is easy to create prejudice. The very 
thought of adulteration causes a stampede, and 
the climax is reached when the food-inspectors 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 181 

come along and arrest, perhaps, the most respect- 
able business man in town. The manufacturer is 
prosecuted and persecuted, and comes back to 
find his business ruined, while he is left deso- 
late. 

Yet it is believed by many that pure-food laws 
aid in checking disease and in prolonging human 
life. This is a mere supposition, however, and 
is not supported by the facts. There may be in- 
stances where the pure-food laws are of benefit, 
yet the plan will never prove a success. 

Pure-food laws will never give us pure food. 
We will get pure food when we know what it is, 
are willing to pay for it and insist upon having 
it, and not before. 

Political food-inspectors must do something to 
show the importance of the pure-food commis- 
sion, yet food-inspectors, supported by all the 
chemists in the world, cannot tell whether a cer- 
tain food is going to prove healthful or not. The 
chemists decide according to certain changes 
which take place in the test tube and under the 
microscope, this part of the work being carried 
on between the cold, bare walls of a laboratory. 
This is vastly different from the warm, life-giving 
fluids of the human body* and does not prove that 
the same changes take place in the digestive tract. 

Long before the chemistry of food was known, 
the instinct of man, even in the savage state, led 
him to select as the basis of common beverages, 
the six plants which, out of many thousands, are 



1S2 PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 

the only ones known to this day to contain theine 
or caffeine, a stimulant and tonic. These are tea, 
coffee, chocolate, guarana, mate and kola nut ; 
and the same instinct and experience must teach 
us regarding other foods. 

Digestion is but imperfectly understood, the 
knowledge we have of it being very superficial. 
Again, food that does not agree with one may 
be the salvation of another. 

The value of food must be left to common- 
sense, observation and experience, to the evolu- 
tion of natural progress and will be so left re- 
gardless of Food-Commissions, because it can- 
not be demonstrated in any other way. Never 
before were we so well supplied with pure-food 
laws, and pure-food inspectors, and never before 
was there so much dyspepsia. This is proved by 
the enormous amount of artificial digestives now 
on the market. Every particle of food taken into 
the system is changed chemically, converted into 
other and different substances ; digestion is car- 
ried on in the circulation, and is influenced by all 
the fluids of the body. The chemist has but a 
limited knowledge of these changes. He tells 
us that albumen, as found in the white of an egg 
and the venom of the rattlesnake, are the same ; 
yet one means life and the other death. The 
chemist tells us that albumen, casein and fibrin 
are the same, yet the farmer makes cheese from 
casein while lean meat and muscle are composed 
of fibrin. Albumin is also the chief constituent 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 18H 

of the human body. The chemist tells us cellu- 
lose and starch are the same, yet cellulose is the 
basis of vegetable fibrin, while starch is our prin- 
cipal food-product. 

These secrets have never been revealed by the 
Great Architect of Nature. The curtain has nev- 
er been lifted, and human eyes have never looked 
behind the veil. Theoretically the chemist knows 
a great deal that is going on within the human 
body; practically he knows but little. Feed a 
sheep corn, and its body is covered with wool , 
feed a goose corn, and its body is covered with 
feathers ; feed a horse corn, and its body is cov- 
ered with hair. There are other animals which, 
if fed corn, will be covered with fur. The coon 
is an example. Feed a man on corn (bread), and 
his body presents only a delicate texture or cov- 
ering, called skin. Can the pure-food commis- 
sion tell us why ? Do they understand the changes 
that take place in the living body ? 

Chemically and physically the composition of 
animal and plant cells appears the same. The 
animal cells separate certain materials from the 
blood-stream and elaborate new substances. The 
plant cells separate certain materials from the 
sap and elaborate new substances, yet the process 
differs greatly as shown by the results. Can the 
pure-food inspectors tell us why? One kind of 
plant cells will decompose carbonic acid, reject 
the oxygen and store up or preserve the carbon 
within their walls or tissues. Another kind of 



184 PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 

plant cells will produce, out of the inorganic con- 
stituents of the air, the perfume of the rose. 

In the animal kingdom, some cells convert some 
constituents of the blood into the digestive fluids, 
other cells convert other elements of the blood 
into milk, etc. Can the chemist tell us why? 
The question of food belongs to organic chem- 
istry, and of this absolutely nothing is known 
during life. The chemist can trace the elements 
of matter into the structure of the living animal 
or plant, and out of it, but not in it. Whatever 
may be their mode of arrangement, or their pos- 
sible ingredients in the living body of plant or 
animal, investigation will forever fail to reveal. 
Here the chemist can only take off his hat and 
confess his ignorance. Theoretically it requires 
a certain amount of bread, meat and vegetables 
to maintain life and health, yet a man may live 
upon bread alone, or upon meat alone, while it 
is claimed that the vegetarian enjoys as good 
health as anyone, and is quite as capable physical- 
ly and mentally. 

Food-inspectors are given arbitrary power ; 
they are supported by the laws, personally they 
are irresponsible. They have the legal right to 
make a ruinous attack on a respectable business 
firm, and when the firm proves that they have a 
right to conduct their own business, the inspectors 
are allowed to go free. The absolute authority 
given to these inspectors is demoralizing to hu- 
man nature. It cannot be otherwise. They are 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. □ Q^ lS5 

liable to use such authority to advance their own 
personal interests. 

It is only reasonable to believe that many, per- 
haps the majority of these food-inspectors, arc 
office-seekers who have no particular interest for 
the health or welfare of the general public. 

Sometimes we hear young society people say 
that so and so "was just too awfully funny for 
anything," but here is something that is still 
funnier. In order to have the people distinguish 
between creamery and renovated butter, the pure- 
food officials, according to their printed bulletin 
for May, 1899, Bulletin No. 45, advise the fol- 
lowing tests so that the consumer may be able to 
detect fraud : 

"1. Microscopic examination of the sample by 
means of polarized light, both with and without 
the selenite plate. 

"2. Valenta's test. 

"3. The Jene modification of Valenta's test. 

"4. Determination of free fatty acids. 

"5-. Reichert, Number." 

Shades of the immortal Caesar ! What do the 
public know or care about polarized light or 
Jene's modification ? 

With all their microscopes and test tubes, the 
officials themselves cannot tell whether they are 
being imposed upon or not. In one of their re- 
cently published proceedings, one of these expert 
examiners says : "It is my opinion that butter 
does not very readily, under ordinary methods of 



180 PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 

treatment, assume a crystalline condition like that 
shown in the renovated butter ; and I am, there- 
fore, inclined to attach considerable importance 
to the evidence obtained by microscopic exam- 
ination. " 

Again, after giving the analysis of five speci- 
mens of butter, the inspector says: "Sample four 
was known to be renovated butter, the other 
samples, judging from analysis, I regard also as 
renovated butter." 

Did not know whether it was or not ! If the 
putrefaction of the race is to be prevented by 
these pure-food inspectors, they have no time for 
such vague talk. Give the old microscope an- 
other turn. Shake up the little test tube again. 
If you have no confidence in yourselves place it 
in somebody else. Keep the wheels turning. Tell 
the people to drop the nickels in the slot, and go 
ahead, as everything is bound to come out all 
right in the end. Just think of a hungry man not 
being allowed to eat his supper until the pure-food 
inspector had examined the butter, and by and by 
the inspector should come back and say to the 
hungry man: "It is my opinion that butter does 
not, under ordinary methods of treatment, as- 
sume a crystalline condition like that shown in 
renovated butter, and I am, therefore, inclined 
to attach considerable importance to the evidence 
obtained by microscopic examination." 

Question : What kind of butter did the hungry 
man have for supper? 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS, 187 

The Polack farmer can stain his dirty off- 
colored butter to resemble a rich, properly made, 
natural, golden, cow-product. Is it any more 
wrong to color steers' fat yellow, than to per- 
form the same operation with lardy cow-grease? 

The Detroit Journal of March 13, 1900, in re- 
porting a suit over a case of process butter, says : 
"The prosecution in this process butter case now 
in progress in Jackson, Mich., rested this morn- 
ing. The defense placed Prof. Delafontaine of 
Chicago on the stand, where he remained all day. 

"The Professor has an experience of forty years 
as a chemist, and the tendency of his testimony 
was to show that no method of analysis has been 
discovered which would be accepted by scientists, 
whereby the difference between dairy, creamery, 
and process butter can be distinguished." This 
means that process butter is so perfect that the 
chemist is unable to detect it. 

Progress along the lines of natural develop- 
ment can manufaGture an article equal to the 
finest creamery butter, yet the pure-food com- 
mission would place the sale of such butter under 
certain restrictions, and at the same time allow 
the free marketing of thousands of tons of dairy 
butter which is unfit to eat. 

During digestion the fluid of the human stom- 
ach contains about 0.2 per cent of muriatic acid, 
and a ferment called pepsin. These digest or dis- 
solve the albumen which is found in the various 
food products. 



188 PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 

In the American Druggist for October, 1900, 
page 219, reference is made to Joseph R. Perry, 
Ph.D., M.D., and what he has to say concerning 
the value of pepsin, as follows : 

"Numerous experiments with pepsin and acid, 
and acid without pepsin are described with the 
observation and conclusion that pepsin and acid 
in three to seven hours digested and dissolved 
egg-albumen, beef and various other foods ; leav- 
ing out the pepsin did not affect the result." Dr. 
Perry also states that he "proved most conclu- 
sively that muriatic acid is a digestor of all these 
foods and that pepsin by itself has no digestive 
power at all." Again Dr. Perry states that "pep- 
sin is one of the greatest humbugs in the whole 
list of the armamentarium of the physician." 

This is another evidence that experiments on 
digestion which are carried on in a test tube by 
a chemist may posses little or no value. This 
one possesses none. Undoubtedly Dr. Perry made 
a careful test before he declared pepsin a "hum- 
bug," and the fact that he did so proves that re- 
liance cannot be placed in any form of artificial 
digestion. Pepsin is not a humbug but artificial 
digestion is. Nature does not manufacture pep- 
sin without a purpose, and the fact that it is only 
present when there is food in the stomach is suf- 
ficient evidence that it aids digestion. 

Take milk, another example. Many fine ar- 
ticles have been written on this subject, but up 
to the present time the best thing on milk is 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 189 

cream. The perishable nature of milk has led to 
numerous attempts to conceal its age, but the 
many chemicals used in the past have probably all 
been discarded for the newer remedy formalde- 
hyde. According to the report of the "Dairy and 
Food Commission/' food inspectors are ever 
watchful and prepared at all times to cause the 
arrest of anyone using formaldehyde as a pre- 
servative. Callerine, Freezine, Preservaline and 
other preparations used for preserving milk are 
probably nothing' more or less than formalde- 
hyde. Regarding the manufacture of Preserva- 
line, the Dairy and Food Commission of Michi- 
gan say, in a printed bulletin for April, 1899, 
page 4: "This (Preservaline) Company seeks to 
promote the sale of its products in the very chan- 
nels where it will most imperil the health of the 
children of our state. The use of acid preserva- 
tives in milk is dangerous, and we doubt if there 
is a chemist of repute to be found in the United 
States, who would countenance its use in milk 
for the feeding of infants/' etc. The Bulletin 
says further: "The Department" (Health De- 
partment) "through its dairy inspectors, will 
make a special effort to detect the use of preserv- 
atives in milk sold for consumption, and we are 
determined that an arrest and prosecution will 
be made in each and every case." 

And yet, the food-commission of Michigan or 
any other state, supported by all the chemists in 
the land, cannot produce evidence that formalde- 



190 PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 

hvde is injurious to the human system. The 
probabilities are it is not. The small amount re- 
quired and its purifying effects, probably render 
milk much more wholesome than when it is not 
used. Especially is this true during the summer 
months. 

It is said that one-half ounce of formaldehyde 
will preserve forty quarts of milk for about 36 
hours in the hottest weather. This is only 
six drops to the quart. It should also be re- 
membered that the formaldehyde evaporates, 
leaving the milk in its natural state. Food-com- 
missions do not object to boiling milk; in fact 
they recommend it, yet boiling may interfere with 
digestion, absorption and assimilation, because 
.nature designed milk to be drank in its natural 
state, and no amount of boiling can improve on 
nature. The fact that most people dislike boiled 
milk is strong evidence that boiling is a detri- 
ment and not a benefit. Formaldehyde produces 
no change in milk, boiling does. 

"Dr. W. S. Alexander, of Oxford, Ohio, in a 
paper read before the Union District Medical 
Association and published in the Cincinnati Lan- 
cet-Clinic, expresses his enthusiastic approval of 
formaldehyde as a remedy for hay fever. He 
employs a one-half per cent solution (about two 
drops to the ounce), allowing the patient to in- 
hale the fumes from a drachm vial. He claims 
that in this way he comes as near curing the most 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 191 

obstinate forms of catarrhal troubles as by all 
other means known." 

Merck and Co., of New York City, are manu- 
facturing chemists, and probably every member 
of the medical profession recognize them as au- 
thority. Merck and Co. say in a printed pamph- 
let : "Formaldehyde is generally conceded to be 
perfectly devoid of toxicity or corrosive proper- 
ties to higher forms of life. No record of exact 
experiments relating to its physiological" (or 
natural) "action on the human body appears to 
exist ; but in a paper read before the Society of 
Public Analysts at London, Dr. Rideal stated that 
he had frequently drank considerable quantities 
of a one per cent solution without experiencing 
any ill effects ; and it is known that formaldehyde 
has been used quite largely during the last few 
years as an antizymotic" (to check fermentation) 
"in articles of food, but we have yet to hear of 
any unpleasant effects following the ingestion of 
the products thus preserved." 

Again, the circular states, "Meat, fish, etc., may 
be kept for a number of days during the hottest 
weather, by placing them in well-covered dishes 
with a tuft of cotton moistened with from four 
to eight drops of formaldehyde solution. The 
antiseptic vapor does not communicate the slight- 
est odor or taste to the meat, etc., the articles be- 
ing perfectly preserved, even under the severest 
conditions of temperature." 

Again : "Formaldehyde has been successfully 



192 PUREoFOOD COMMISSIONS. 

used for preserving catsup, vinegar, pickles, milk, 
fruit, vegetables, mincemeat, fruit juices, syrups, 
cream, broths, fruit jellies, etc., the proportion 
usually required being one or two to eight thou- 
sand ; but from the innocuousness" (harmless- 
ness) "of formaldehyde, it may be inferred that 
the proportions can be safely exceeded if neces- 
sary." 

A pamphlet published by the well-known firm 
of Parke, Davis & Co., of Detroit, contains the" 
following : 

"Formaldehyde solutions have the advantage 
of not being retarded in their action by albumin- 
ous matters and of not injuring the articles to 
which they are applied." The pamphlet also 
states : "i 132000 preserves milk for several days ; 
1 14000 is recommended for moistening paper 
used to cover jam, etc. ; 1 13200 for rinsing dairy 
vessels; 1 1500 as a mouth-wash." 

Again : "A spray of one-half per cent is valu- 
able in hay fever, and a spray of one per cent in 
whooping-cough." One per cent is four and one- 
half drops to the ounce. 

The same circular states : "Formaldehyde so- 
lutions have been employed quite extensively in 
the treatment of throat affections. In sixteen 
cases of acute laryngitis, inhalations of a two per 
cent solution of formaldehyde" rendered "a com- 
plete cure in from seven to twenty-four hours," 
etc. A two per cent solution is nine drops to the 
ounce. 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 193 

The foregoing authorities recommend four and 
one-half drops to the ounce in whooping-cough, 
and nine drops to the ounce in throat troubles, 
while it is claimed that it only requires six drops 
to the quart to preserve milk; and this soon 
evaporates. 

But seemingly the Pure-Food Commission pro- 
poses to disregard all facts and cause the arrest 
and prosecution" of every one who tries to check 
decomposition and preserve food in a healthy 
state. 

The Detroit Journal for January 19th, 1901, 
reports a suit brought by the Pure-Food Com- 
mission, who claim to have discovered formal- 
dehyde in milk. During the course of the trial 
the Journal reports Dr. Hurdy as saying in a 
printed article : "I have for the past five months 
eaten daily for my lunch a bowl of bread and 
milk in which I put ten drops of formaldehyde, 
and so far I have been unable to observe that it 
has left any ill effects — rather I would say, that 
I am better for the use of the chemical." Dr. 
Hurdy also says : "That five to ten drops of for- 
maldehyde to the gallon of milk would keep it 
sweet and would not detract from its nutritious 
property." 

Other evidence given in the case as reported 
in the Detroit Free Press of January 26th, is as 
follows : 

"Dr. Edward K. Bacon, a teacher of surgery 
and anatomy in the Michigan College of Medi- 



194 PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 

cine and Surgery, and a practising physician,, 
stated that he has had six years of actual prac- 
tice in medicine, and made a special study of for- 
maldehyde and used it in his practice to a large 
extent, particularly in diseases of babies. 

Dr. Bacon said he had used it in doses of from 
one-fiftieth to ten drops in the regular solution. 
It proved a cure, in cases of infants, for stomach,, 
lung, bronchial and other complaints. He be- 
lieved that sterilization and boiling milk had a 
bad effect from a physiological standpoint. By 
the use of formaldehyde, however, it was possible 
to ward off disease in children. The doctor said 
between one drop to 25,000 and one drop to 50,- 
000 will keep milk sweet from twenty-four to 
thirty-six hours, prevent the growth of organ- 
isms, etc. Plant life contains formaldehyde." 

Similar cases of prosecution by Health Boards 
could be added to great length. 

It is estimated that about fifty per cent or one- 
half of all deaths in cities are of young children, 
and about two-thirds of this number are infants 
under one year of age. In nearly every case the 
primary cause of disease may be found in the di- 
gestive tract. Over one-third of the children and 
infants die during the months of July and Au- 
gust. Hot weather kills babies by spoiling their 
milk and other foods. During the hot months 
feeding bottles and other containers are often in 
an unhealthy condition, and the poisonous prod- 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 195 

ucts of putrefaction are conveyed to the child's 
stomach, hence disease and death. 

The foregoing death-rate is based on estimates 
made by careful observers, and if true, the Pure- 
Food Commissions are doing very little for the 
preservation of human life. Perhaps a trace of 
formaldehyde, just enough to check decomposi- 
tion during the summer months, would prove a 
powerful aid in checking disease and death ; but 
food-inspectors have never been trained in the 
handling of children, and do not care much about 
it anyway. Again, they have no time for these 
minor duties. They are too busy making out bills 
of fare for hotels, boarding-houses, and other in- 
stitutions, and thus teaching the people what they 
can and cannot eat ; too busy formulating recipes 
for the manufacture of flavoring extracts, giving 
directions for canning fruit, and watching some 
enterprising American who takes dirty dairy but- 
ter and purifies it, butter which was unfit to eat, 
but which the food-inspectors allowed to be sold 
anywhere. But after modern methods and skill 
have purified it the Pure-Food Commission places 
its sale under certain restrictions. Every one un- 
derstands that both city and country is flooded 
with a worthless product called dairy butter, and 
the food inspectors allow the free marketing of 
this product? Yes, but when it is rendered clean 
and wholesome, — equal to the finest creamery, it 
must bear some special mark which naturally re- 
flects upon its purity, and casts suspicion upon it. 



196 PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 

Again, when the food-inspectors find a man 
selling a can of corn beef labeled with red letters 
instead of blue or black, and containing or not 
containing, it makes little difference which, some 
particular mark, that originated with the Pure- 
Food Commission, and which no one else cares 
anything about, then they cause an arrest. This 
keeps the Pure-Food Commission prominently be- 
fore the public mind. 

How strange that our grandfathers and grand- 
mothers lived to such a hearty old age, when they 
never heard of a food-inspector. 

Are the Pure-Food inspectors really interested 
in the public health? 

Are they working for notoriety? 

In order to gain public confidence, do they 
make false charges against respectable business 
men? 

The Grand Ledge, Michigan, Independent, of 
December 21st, 1900, contains the following: 
"The Pure-Food Inspectors are after parties who 
are in the habit of embalming oysters. Three 
wholesale dealers in Detroit have been arrested 
charged with adding boric acid to their bivalves. 
It is claimed that one-hundredth of one per cent 
of the preservative is dangerous to health." 

Yet some of our leading manufacturers of 
physicians' supplies recommend this same boric 
acid as an aid to digestion. They say: "If de- 
composition follows the ingestion of food, and 
there are eructations of gas and flatulence, a 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 197 

drachm or two of boric acid may be added to a 
four ounce solution of pepsin. This drug, curi- 
ously enough, increases the power of pepsin to 
dissolve albuminous foods so as to almost double 
it, and also arrests decomposition/' 

The four-ounce prescription just mentioned 
contains twenty-four doses (six ordinary tea- 
spoonfuls are equal to one ounce.) The two 
drachms of boric acid recommended contain one 
hundred and twenty grains. One hundred and 
twenty grains divided in twenty-four doses, the 
amount of the prescription, gives five grains for 
each dose. The Pure-Food Commission says one 
hundredth of one per cent is dangerous to health. 
One-hundredth of one per cent is about one one- 
hundred and thirtieth of a grain to one teaspoon- 
ful — the usual dose. 

As stated, some authorities recommend five 
grains to a dose; this is over six hundred times 
the amount. Other authorities recommend ten 
grains for a dose ; this is over thirteen hundred 
times the amount. 

On December 22nd, 1900, the author weighed 
out one hundred and fifty grains of boric acid, 
and divided this amount into fifteen doses, mak- 
ing ten grains to each dose. He took one dose 
three times a day for five days, or until the one 
hundred and fifty grains were taken. This was 
over thirteen hundred times the amount which the 
author understands the Pure-Food Commission 
claimed to be dangerous, yet the result was a 



198 PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 

complete success, — no effect on the appetite ex- 
cept to improve it. There was no inconvenience 
or ill effect, health perfect. 

The author has seen a whole handful of boric 
acid thrown into the wound after an amputation 
at the knee; the flaps were stitched together, the 
acid was absorbed, and the patient proceeded to 
get w r ell promptly. 

And lastly, some of the best authorities state: 
"Several observers have reported cases in which 
thirty and even sixty grains of boric acid were 
taken several times a day without any untoward 
effects." This is several thousand times the 
amount which the author understands the Pure- 
Food Commission claimed to be dangerous. 

Boric acid is a very weak acid, so mild in its 
effects that dissolved in water it is frequently used 
as an eye-wash. Borax is formed of boric acid 
and soda, hence boric acid may be made by de- 
composing borax. 

The trouble with the Food Inspectors seems to 
be their failure to differentiate between an adul- 
terant and a preservative. The author is heartily 
in sympathy with every law and every effort to 
prevent food adulteration in any form, yet food 
may be preserved without adulteration. 

To adulterate is to add that which is impure or 
less valuable, to mix other and baser ingredients 
for the purpose of gain. 

To preserve is to protect unimpaired, to keep 
in the same condition, to prevent fermentation, 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 199 

decomposition and decay. The two conditions 
are exactly opposite. To preserve food is to main- 
tain the original condition unchanged, hence pre- 
servatives are of great importance. Formalde- 
hyde is a preservative ; so is boric acid. Heat and 
sugar used in canning fruit are preservatives. 
The articles and processes used in rendering 
iilthy dairy butter clean and wholesome are pre- 
servatives and all should receive the highest com- 
mendation. Yet the Pure Food Commission at- 
tack these preservatives and these methods, which 
are designed to maintain a high grade standard, 
and seek to place them on the same low level with 
adulterants. They go further, they prosecute 
those engaged in the creditable work of improve- 
ment the same as they prosecute the base, cor- 
rupt, and fraudulent adulterator. 

Unless Food Inspectors can realize the differ- 
ence between an adulterant and a preservative. 
they had better resign their positions and saw- 
wood. 

Undoubtedly the food-inspectors could, if they 
felt called upon, write breezy articles proving 
their devoted service, and the great benefit they 
are rendering the people. 

Were the Pure-Food laws made for the people ? 
The inspectors say yes. 

Did the people know anything about the fram- 
ing of those laws? Probably not. 

Did the people ask for Pure-Food inspectors? 



200 PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 

No, it is said the inspectors were thrust upon 
them. 

Were the Pure-Food laws created by the trust ? 
May be. If not by the people, or by the trusts,, 
then are they supported by office-seeking politi- 
cians ? It may be true that the Food Commission 
was originally designed as a benefit, and that the 
promoters were conscientious in the discharge of 
what they believed to be their duty, but it is said 
the Food-Commission has been turned into a 
political ring. 

Are food commissions controlled by the trusts ? 

A recent issue of a leading medical journal 
says editorially: "When we come to baking- 
powders, we begin to smell wool. The trust con- 
trols patents on processes employed in the manu- 
facture of tartaric acid that render it impossible 
for independent houses to compete with it unless 
alum is employed. Hence the endeavor to create 
popular sentiment against alum. It may be in- 
jurious, possibly in the small amounts found in 
the powders made outside of the trust; but the 
people do not care to be 'worked' by a monopoly 
and stampeded into their corral like a lot of Texas 
steers. There is no overweening solicitude for 
the public health back of this pure-food agita- 
tion, but the selfish desire to promote the profits 
of monopoly, pure and simple." 

When will we learn that all substantial gains 
of the human race, from primitive savagery to the 
present day, have come to us by the natural laws 



PURE FOOD COMMISSIONS. 201 

of universal progress, and not through a few 
political humbugs and office-seekers? 

Upon natural law rests the constitution of na- 
ture, which ever bears all things to higher heights 
and nobler forms. Through all the ages of the 
world, the greatest enemy of man has been the 
arrogant few. This has been possible through a 
wrong impression, and one of the deadliest forms 
of such impression has been the almost universal 
belief that parliaments, congresses and legalized 
bodies are wiser than the rest of the people, wiser 
than nature and her laws, and that these political 
bodies can destroy social evils and fraud. 



DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 



While this volume is not intended to deal with 
bacteriology, the author wishes to add a few 
thoughts upon that subject. Yet the question is 
one of such importance and magnitude, that no 
doubt the reader will conclude at once, that it 
cannot be answered or even intelligently alluded 
to in one short chapter. 

Of course the writer understands that many 
will laugh at any teachings opposed to the present 
day, popular germ theories. Yet in another art- 
icle by the author, # entitled "Microbes and 
Health" there is given a clear solution of the 
germ problem, a clear explanation of how con- 
tagious diseases are conveyed from one to an- 
other, and abundant evidence that such convey- 
ance is entirely independent of all germs and 
germ theories. 

In the following pages the author has merely 
called attention to some of the absurdities of mod- 
ern bacteriology 7 . The writer is a believer 

"In that shrewd suspicion, 

That the whole microbe train, 

Had its first conception 

In some doctor's empty brain." 

During the past few years it is claimed many 
new discoveries have been made in the bacter- 
iological field. But the medical profession has so 



DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 203 

often had its expectations aroused only to be dis- 
appointed, that it has come to be somewhat skep- 
tical in regard to the announcement of great dis- 
coveries outside the field of therapeutics in which 
it has been accustomed to work. 

"The theory of the bacteriologist is that each 
disease to which the human flesh is heir, is due 
to a specific and preexisting germ, and it is his 
dream, (note that it is only a dream) that by 
inoculation with attenuated culture of such 
germs, he can make the body immune to their 
presence." 

The bacteriologists have become so strong in 
the faith that during the past few years, beside 
the many new discoveries ( ?) there have also been 
many new laws passed, and many more proposed. 
From the four points of the compass come con- 
tinual warnings, mingled with much fear and 
trembling. From one direction come reports of 
an attempt to compel all physicians to use anti- 
toxin ; from another the claim that "medical sci- 
ence has proved that consumption is purely con- 
tagious. " 

From another is brought the intelligence of 
an attempt to pass a law that "any employe or pu- 
pil under the jurisdiction of the public school de- 
partment, suspected of having pulmonary tuber- 
culosis (consumption) must either leave or sub- 
mit to a bacteriological examination by the city 
bacteriologist, whose findings shall be the only 



204 DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 

evidence ( ?) required by the Board of Education. " 

It has been supposed that every question had 
two sides, but bacteriology has not. 

While the baoterilogoists mentioned are striv- 
ing to carry their various plans into effect, there 
are others trying to pass a law giving them 
official power to decide what diseases are con- 
tagious and those that are not. And on the 
memorable night of January 14, 1901, the city 
of Chicago actually passed a law to the effect 
that "No person shall spit upon any public side- 
walk," etc. According to the paper which pub- 
lished the proceedings, the reason for the pas- 
sage of this remarkable law was "the latest dis- 
covery of science and medicine proves that grip, 
pneumonia, etc., are spread through the habit of 
spitting." 

Fearing that these laws and these claims may 
carry the reader back to the Middle Ages, and 
that he may forget "where he is at," the author 
hastens to repeat that these remarkable events 
and discoveries took place in the city of Chicago, 
U. S. A., A. D. 1901. 

In order to give the reader the cause of grip 
more clearly, permit the author to quote Dr. 
Finkler a prominent germ theorist. Dr. Finkler 
says : "I am inclined to accept the views of 
Leichtenstern that there exists a pandemic in- 
fluence caused by the Pfeiffer bacillus, and also 
an epidemico-endemic influenza" or grip "of 



DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 205 

identical nature which develops after the pan- 
demic infection has run its course, being caused 
by the germs left over." 

Comment is unnecessary. Undoubtedly the 
bacteriologists dislike to use so many technicali- 
ties as presented in Dr. Finkler's explanation (?) 
yet they find it necessary when they wish to con- 
vey a meaning (?) which no one can understand. 

The brave councilman who stood sponsor for 
the new Chicago bill will undoubtedly receive a 
chromo from Germany, France, Italy or Spain, 
because these countries are the originators of the 
various methods of saving human life. And while 
the Chicago councilman may have acted simply 
as an echo, having first received a tip by tele- 
phone, this should not detract from the great 
credit due him. For while we all realize (?) that 
the United States plays second fiddle in the great 
problems of life and death, it is not every one 
who has the moral courage to stand up and ac- 
knowledge it. 

Evidently the foreign messages were poured 
into the ear of the Chicago councilman with less 
trouble than that experienced by "Dinkelspiel" 
(Geo. V. Hobart). The latter was trying to 
telephone to Mars, and he said that just as he was 
ready to speak, the nonconductor hit the quadru- 
plex in the resistance coil, and spilled the current 
for about three miles between the milky way and 
the dog-star. The polar zinc hit the magnetic 



20(5 DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 

copper, which caused the ground wires to grab 
the circuit between the switch-board and planet 
Venus, thereby making the ratio unequal to 
the dividend where it meets the voltage; the 
trouble was further increased by the vibrations 
under the armature of the resistance, where the 
magnetic needle meets the inductor of the home 
plate, and in pushing aside the wires by a passing 
comet. Instantly the wires spluttered and went 
out, and the operator picked up a few loose tech- 
nicalities as souvenirs, and went home. 

The Chicago health board should place re- 
frigerators on the street corners, to prevent 
sweating during the heated months, for during 
perspiration the pores of the skin are widely 
dilated, and there is nothing to prevent the 
treacherous germs from entering the bodies of 
innocent victims ; swallowing should also be 
strictly forbidden, for fear of carrying germs into 
the system. Maybe "mosquitoes do cause yellow 
fever/' but if the mosquito has got his foot in it, 
it will serve as a lesson to let other people's 
business alone. But we should not allow our sym- 
pathies to go over on the side of the mosquito, 
but rather let us give encouragement to the un- 
fortunate policemen of Chicago, who will now 
be compelled to allow burglars, foot-pads, and 
other criminals to follow .their own sweet wills, 
while they (the policemen) are chasing spitters. 
Even now we can hear those officers cry out, "Of 



DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 207 

all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are 
these, it might have been" — otherwise. There is 
"no rest for the weary?" Well, hardly; not if 
they gather in all the spitters. And it is safe to 
say that either the spitters or the Chicago police 
force will be "all run down" before the question 
is settled. 

The germ theorists have surrounded us with 
so many dangers that suicide would seem our 
only means of escape. According to bacteriology 
it is not safe to breathe for fear of taking in 
the tubercular germ, or to eat or drink for fear 
of taking in the typhoid germ, while kissing your 
best girl is fraught with, dangers too numerous 
to mention and too terrible to contemplate. At 
first the germ theory was, oh, so easy, so delight- 
fully simple. It was this : "Every contagious 
disease was due to a specific germ. No germ; 
no disease ; eliminate the germ, cure the disease. " 
This was a plain statement which all could under- 
stand. Then Sanarelli, Yersin, Roux, Koch, 
Metschnikoff and a few other self constituted 
leaders took the reins and since then have been 
running the whole business. It is said the "wise 
men came from the East," and the author believes 
that if those mentioned had known so much they 
would have come along with the rest. 

Even the bacteriologists admit that there are 
innumerable cases of infectious disease where 
no germ can be found, and also innumerable cases 



20« DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 

where the germs are present, and no disease can 
be found, and as a result they have tried to 
get out of the difficulty by saying: "Bacteriolo- 
gists have come to recognize that not the presence 
of the germ, but some virulent condition of the 
microbe causes the disease. In other words the 
diseased condition seems to be common to both 
germ and patient, and the problem which really 
confronts us is to find out what ails the germ." 
The author believes that the germ is all right, 
and respectfully inquires what ails the bacter- 
iologists? Again, if the "disease is common to 
both germ and patient," let us ask, does the 
patient take the disease from the germ, or does 
the germ take the disease from the patient? "For 
years the more advanced (?) bacteriologists have 
been brooding in the laboratories over test tubes 
and microscopes, working with the various liquid 
mediums, raising little bugs, and by injecting 
them into animals they have been trying to dis- 
close the mysteries of disease. By this mean r . 
they have daily arrived at new and more import- 
ant conclusions. These conclusions have emanated 
from the sacred incubator, which was presided 
over by the professors themselves. These dis- 
coveries would be of vastly more benefit if kept 
secret within the walls of the renowned institu- 
tions in which they were born. Bacteriologists 
publish sensational accounts of the dire evils 
which would happen to the people if it were not 



DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 20D 

for their deep study and watchful care, and when 
we read the glowing accounts of these life pre- 
servers, we feel that "Life, liberty and the pursuit 
of happiness are little enough to give in return." 
But alas, just as the bacteriologists have reached 
the topmost wave of prosperity, it is discovered 
that germs are not at all diagnostic of disease." 

Since our late unpleasantness with Spain we 
have heard much about bubonic plague. The 
writer has just read a pamphlet on bubonic 
plague written by Dr. Walter Wyman, a noted 
bacteriologist. The Doctor claims the disease 
is caused by a germ, and he describes the plague 
germ as a "cocco-bacillus." Coccus means round 
like a ball, and bacillus means long like a rod. 
It is known that many times bacteriologists do not 
agree, and this wise division is understood to be 
for the purpose of giving both sides an equal 
chance. The advice furnished by Doctor Wyman 
and other bacteriologists is given in large quanti- 
ties. Such generosity reminds us of the Irish- 
man's will, which, condensed, reads something 
like this : 

"I bequathe to all mankoind the free air of 
hiven, all the fishes in the sea they can ketch, 
and all the birds in the air they can shute. I be- 
quathe to thim all the sun, moon and stars. I lave 
to Timothy O'Flaherty one pint of potheen I 
can't finish. May God have mercy on O'Flah- 
erty." 



210 DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 

The author wishes to note briefly another class, 
the manufacturers of animal extracts; those 
whose penetrating eye and revolving brain first 
saw the elements of health in the secretions of 
the long whiskered goat, and who first breathed 
the words Roberts' Lymph. 

The bacteriologists are unable to give us the 
cause of disease, but they can tell us of the germ. 
The bacillus-tuberculosis of Koch, and later the 
staphyococcuspyogeneseaureus and last the coc- 
co-bacillus. The importance of this combination 
bacillustuberculosisstaphylococcuspyogenesaure- 
ujcoccobacillus cannot be overestimated, nor 
can it be fully appreciated except by the disciples 
of Koch. 

Dr. Wyman is Surgeon General, Marine Hos- 
pital Service, and after explaining ( ?) how the 
germ enters the body, the doctor says regarding 
the spread of disease that rats, fleas and insects 
are the most probable means of conveyance. Then 
Dr. Wyman himself asks the stupendous ques- 
tion: "How is the disease conveyed from rat to 
rat?" 

Regarding this grave problem the doctor 
solemnly declares : "It is very possible that the 
fleas which infest rats, and which notoriously 
leave their bodies as soon as the cadavers "(dead 
bodies )" become cold after death, may, by their 
bites infect other rats." It will readily be seen 
that no one but a bacteriologist can prove these 
questions. Prove them as clearlv as it is said 



DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 211 

Chauncey Depew proved that prices do not de- 
pend upon supply and demand. Chauncey's 
butcher told him that sausage was worth 
twenty cents a pound. You asked twenty-five 
this morning*, didn't you? " Yah, dot vas wen 
I had some. Now I don't got me some, I sells 
him for dwenty cents. Dot makes for me a 
reputations for selling- scheap, und I don'd lose 
noddings." Mr. Depew did not want any sau- 
sage, and the dealer had none — no demand, no 
supply — yet the price changed. 

Through the influence of the bacteriologist , 
the senate and legislative bodies of our sev- 
eral states, have been wrestling with the 
wily germ for many moons. It is not long 
since the Attorney General of Michigan was 
asked to lend his aid in checking an epidemic 
of measles in Detroit. To send a lawyer to 
quarantine a case of measles is certainly a very 
good way to advertise yourself. Another way 
which the author wishes to suggest is to join 
the ranks of those who have shown such a 
fondness for that long whiskered animal so 
frequently mentioned in the books of Moses, 
and from whose secretions is manufactured 
what the author believes to be a pious fraud, 
Roberts' lymph. 

The crowning virtue of manhood is man, 
and as the coming centuries roll over their 
ashes, their names will be held in as profound 
respect as if angel purity had given the impress 
of divinity to their every action. u As time ad- 



212 DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 

vances their deeds will become richer and 
holier until they command the respect and 
reverence of every beholder. A nation may 
be lost in the whirlpool of revolution and strife, 
yet the names of great men will remain as 
enduring* as time." 

The men who have led the world in peace 
and war, who have snatched victory from land 
and sea, who have made the world beautiful 
and grand, who have labored for the advance- 
ment of the human race, labored to place man 
on a higher plane intellectually, labored 1o 
relieve suffering and prolong human life, have 
been prompted by the demands of imperious 
duty, based upon the divine principles of 
equality. As time advances the progress and 
successful termination of the principles for 
which they struggled combine to throw around 
them a halo that fills the reader with admir- 
ation. 

Do unto others as you would have others do 
unto you was the watchword in heaven before 
this mighty world was spoken into existence, 
and its melody will be chanted through the 
rolling ages of eternity. These magic words 
are still the guiding star to all who are striving 
to dispel the mists of superstition and place 
benevolence and right before commercial in- 
terests. 

"Justice is one of the noblest attributes of 
man. It soars above self and is prompted by 
honest motives. It aims at glorious ends. It 



DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 213 

is not confined to any nation, country or caste. 
No sectarianism can swerve it, no monarch 
suppress it, and no obstacle paralyze it." 

Contrast such principles with the gigantic 
system that has been built up during- the last 
few years, founded upon the present day germ 
theories and supported by what is called 
serum therapy, animal extracts and antitoxins. 
These are simply the filthy blood serums 
taken from the lower animals and injected 
into the human system. By this means the 
bacteriologists claim to be able to cure disease; 
especially those diseases that are "ketching." 
Yet it is well known that they cannot cure 
small pox, measles, whooping cougii, scarlet 
fever, or any other disease. In fact, while 
Health Boards and other bacteriologists manu- 
facture and use antitoxins for many diseases, 
they have proved such utter failures that of 
late we hear little of them, except antitoxin 
for diphtheria. The others have faded from 
view until even the most sanguine bacteriolo- 
gist is ashamed to speak of them. Antitoxin 
for diphtheria will meet the same fate. The 
same is true of animal extracts. In fact, the 
whole g-erm theory with its auxiliaries, 
although encased in an armor of self-pride 
and arbitrary leadership, will die a natural 
death. 

The author realizes that State Boards of 
Health and serum manufacturers would move 
heaven and earth to maintain their commercial 



214 DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 

interest and pose as leaders of the medical pro- 
fession. But theory versus facts will never 
succeed. " Truth crushed to earth shall rise 
again." The germ theories are fading. Truth 
and realities are taking their place, and soon 
they will lie buried beneath the charitable 
mantle of natural progress. Even now it is 
estimated that less that half the medical profes- 
sion believe the doctrine. Yet the efforts of 
those who support its claims have resulted in 
vast business enterprises which extends their 
interests throughout the civilized world. So 
skillfully has this been done that the public 
look upon each move with the greatest admi- 
ration, and wonder what science will discover 
next. What is the result of this marvelous 
and complicated system of research? Why, 
there is no evidence that the bacteriologists 
have ever prevented a single disease or saved 
one human life. On the contrary, with the 
discovery of each new (?) microbe, the scythe 
of death cuts a new swath in the ranks of 
living men and women. This fatal termina- 
tion is the natural result of testing some new 
serum or animal extract, and is also influenced 
by the excitement and fear created by some 
startling claims made by the State Boards of 
Health or other bacteriologists. The author 
believes the so called science is the outgrowth 
of gigantic commercial interests, which are 
supported by those who are acting contrary to 
natural laws, laws which are repellant alike 



DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 215 

to science and humanity. It is publicly stated 
that some of our philanthropists are to build 
an immense institute for medical research. (?) 
We are told that the proposed institution is to 
be established on the theories of Koch, Pasteur, 
and other commercial scientists in Europe. 
The chief event which made the name of Koch 
famous was the construction of a colossal 
edifice of pretense, to which clung- the des- 
perate hopes of countless consumptives — only 
to be crushed when it fell, or when Koch's 
tuberculin was pronounced a fraud by the 
civilized world. 

Again, when we turn from this financial 
enterprise to that of Pasteur, of hydrophobia 
fame, we find that during the past fifty years 
there probably have not been so many cases 
of hydrophobia in the United States as have 
occurred in Paris in one year, and Paris is the 
home of the Pasteur Institute. This corres- 
ponds to the statement of James Howard 
Thornton, C. B. M. B., Fellow of Kings Col-* 
lege, London, that the inoculation of the Pas- 
teur antirabic serum often produces hydro- 
phobia. The same as antitoxin for diphtheria 
often causes death. It is stated that at the 
April 9th, 1900, meeting- of the medical asso- 
ciation of the greater city of New York, anti- 
toxin for diphtheria was almost universally 
condemned by those who spoke. 

We remember the teaching that every animal 
lives upon another. The strong-er devouring- 



216 DO GERMS CAUSE DISEASE? 

the weaker. That every mouth is a slaughter- 
house and every stomach a tomb, and that over 
this precipice runs a perfect Niagara of blood. 
The writer believes that trusts, Boards of 
Health and other monopolies, possess this gor- 
mandizing- power to a remarkable degree, and, 
while his efforts may be weak, the author will 
lend his influence to aid in checking the tre- 
mendous tide of commercialism that underlies 
the germ theories, the manufacture of animal 
extracts, serum therapy, and antitoxins. 

The millions of public money now turned 
into the channels of so called medical science, 
and for which Boards of Health are largely 
responsible, should be converted into institu- 
tions where the grand yet simple truths of 
hygienic living could be open to all. Health 
must be obtained by temperance, purity, clean- 
liness, a contented mind and cheerful spirit, 
and by healthful atmosphere., rendered pure by 
the untiring operation of nature's laboratory; 
and not by inoculating the system with poison 
from diseased animals or dug from the brains 
and entrails of tortured brutes. "But self is 
the Sahara of the human heart, where all the 
noble powers of the soul are buried in its 
scorching sands." The mournful process of 
trying to extract your health from another's 
disease, or your comfort from another's misery, 
should be exchanged for that preventive medi- 
cine, that beautiful gift — an untainted system. 
As stated, Microbes and Health gives a lucid 



DO G3RMS CAUSE DISEASE}? 217 

exposition of the germ theories. An analysis 
which the author believes will be readily under- 
stood and accepted by all. 



I 



• 



Aug 3 2©0l 



JUL 29 1901 



